COVID-19 is a challenge faced by individuals (personal vulnerability and behavior), requiring coordinated policy from national government. However, another critical layer—intergroup relations—frames many decisions about how resources and support should be allocated. Based on theories of self and social identity uncertainty, subjective group dynamics, leadership, and social cohesion, we argue that this intergroup layer has important implications for people’s perceptions of their own and others’ situation, political management of the pandemic, how people are influenced, and how they resolve identity uncertainty. In the face of the pandemic, initial national or global unity is prone to intergroup fractures and competition through which leaders can exploit uncertainties to gain short-term credibility, power, or influence for their own groups, feeding polarization and extremism. Thus, the social and psychological challenge is how to sustain the superordinate objective of surviving and recovering from the pandemic through mutual cross-group effort.

COVID-19是个人面临的挑战（个人脆弱性和行为），需要国家政府的协调政策。但是，另一个关键层（组间关系）构成了有关如何分配资源和支持的许多决策。基于自我和社会身份不确定性，主观群体动态，领导力和社会凝聚力的理论，我们认为这一群体间层对人们对自己和他人处境的看法，大流行的政治管理，人们如何受到影响具有重要意义。 ，以及他们如何解决身份不确定性。面对这种大流行，最初的国家或全球团结很容易发生集团间的分裂和竞争，通过这种竞争，领导者可以利用不确定性来为自己的集团获得短期信誉，权力或影响力，喂养两极分化和极端主义。因此，社会和心理挑战是如何通过跨群体的共同努力来维持从大流行中幸存和恢复的首要目标。