**6. Conclusions**

A pandemic is a complex phenomenon as it is always a point of articulation between natural and social determinations. Its analysis is transversal: it is important to capture the points of intersection of the determinations and analyse their consequences. In this process, Social Sciences assume themselves as a scientific project centred on interdisciplinarity that favours a relationship of interdependence and complementarity between Social Sciences, in the theoretical and methodological plurality that seeks to articulate macro-social dynamics with local processes, allowing the connection of subjective meanings with practices, and that focuses on the articulations between systems and actors, between structures and practices, between the reality of social conditions of existence and the social construction of reality [97–100]. This enables the demystification of common knowledge shared in society, but which in reality is not correct [101,102]; and fosters sociological imagination [103].

The discourse space on the COVID-19 contagion–pandemic dyad can be understood as the expression of a coalition of discourses, i.e., the interaction of various discourses, combined in re-interpretative modalities of certain realities and social phenomena. The circumstantial coalitions of interests, which shape the different discursive records and actions produced by different agents of different social spaces (political, medical, scientific, economic and religious)—enable the acknowledgement and legitimation of this pandemic threat and danger— and the promotion of its public management. They add to the definition and implementation of health policies, as well as to the promotion and development of institutional areas of a preventive nature, namely vaccination, health cordons, quarantine, isolation, social distancing, and intervening in the configuration of the collective managemen<sup>t</sup> of disease and health.

In the case of pandemics, authors such as von Braun, Zamagni and Sorondo [104] argue that understanding the meanings of various social actions is critical in their managemen<sup>t</sup> [20,105], with the development of specific measures for different social groups [39,40,77] and the possibility to counter the logics underlying the stigmatisation of the "other" [106]. In the COVID-19 pandemic, they imbricate: a new virus (SARS-CoV-2, with its own genetic characteristics); a human actor who is both the carrier of the pathogen and the diagnosed (or not) patient who brings out illness and sickness; an environment where nature (animal reservoir), humans and society interact; the knowledge of scientific medicine that is created at the same time as the virus replicates and the disease produces its effects, and legitimises public policies—a link that gives rise to an irreducible, inextricably biological, environmental and social relationship [107,108]. It is, therefore, important to promote an interdisciplinary scientific project characterised by the interdependence between the epidemiological, medical and biological knowledge and the knowledge produced by the Social and Human Sciences to better understand an economic, social and health crisis of such a huge scale and to shape the medical and political managemen<sup>t</sup> of this and future epidemics and pandemics.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, C.M.F., M.J.S., J.G.M. and S.S.; methodology, C.M.F., M.J.S. and S.S.; formal analysis, C.M.F., M.J.S., J.G.M. and S.S.; investigation, C.M.F., J.G.M. and S.S.; writing—original draft preparation, C.M.F., M.J.S., J.G.M. and S.S.; writing—review and editing, M.J.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** University of Azores, Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences—CICS.UAc/CICS.NOVA.UAc, UID/SOC/04647/2020, with the financial support of FCT/MEC through national funds and when applicable co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement.

**Acknowledgments:** We would like to thank to the Editor and Reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
