Life with COVID-19: Evaluation of overcoming the coronavirus crisis in Latvia and recommendations for societal resilience in the future

The project aims to evaluate Latvian society’s preparedness to overcome a crisis and the capability to address it and to prepare recommendations for future scenarios to help reinforce the society’s resilience. The primary source of such evaluation is a comprehensive report of the complex socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on Latvian society. Leading scholars from multiple fields of social sciences representing four major research universities have come together to collaborate on this unprecedented project. Its uniqueness and innovation lies in its multilayered, multidisciplinary, and diachronic perspective on the impacts that the crisis had on different segments of Latvian society. Their unique perspective merges the methodological approaches from communication and media studies, psychology, social anthropology, pedagogy, sociology, statistics, computer science and artificial intelligence, and other fields. Because the participating scholars have long-term experience in studying Latvian society, they have accumulated unique historical datasets which they will correlate with the newest data in their comparative analysis. Thus, they will be able to precisely determine and measure the actual impact of the COVID-19 crisis and recommend actions to mitigate the impact. Based on the multidisciplinary report, the project will offer detailed recommendations for further steps toward full recovery and further development of social and economic activity in Latvia.