COVID-19–Related Rumor Content, Transmission, and Clarification Strategies in China: Descriptive Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Given the permeation of social media throughout society, rumors spread faster than ever before, which significantly complicates government responses to public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE We aimed to examine the characteristics and propagation of rumors during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in China and evaluated the effectiveness of health authorities’ release of correction announcements. METHODS We retrieved rumors widely circulating on social media in China during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and assessed the effectiveness of official government clarifications and popular science articles refuting those rumors. RESULTS We show that the number of rumors related to the COVID-19 pandemic fluctuated widely in China between December 1, 2019 and April 15, 2020. Rumors mainly occurred in 3 provinces: Hubei, Zhejiang, and Guangxi. Personal social media accounts constituted the major source of media reports of the 4 most widely distributed rumors (the novel coronavirus can be prevented with “Shuanghuanglian”: 7648/10,664, 71.7%; the novel coronavirus is the SARS coronavirus: 14,696/15,902, 92.4%; medical supplies intended for assisting Hubei were detained by the local government: 3911/3943, 99.2%; asymptomatically infected persons were regarded as diagnosed COVID-19 patients with symptoms in official counts: 322/323, 99.7%). The number of rumors circulating was positively associated with the severity of the COVID-19 epidemic (ρ=0.88, 95% CI 0.81-0.93). The release of correction articles was associated with a substantial decrease in the proportion of rumor reports compared to accurate reports. The proportions of negative sentiments appearing among comments by citizens in response to media articles disseminating rumors and disseminating correct information differ insignificantly (both correct reports: χ12=0.315, P=.58; both rumors: χ12=0.025, P=.88; first rumor and last correct report: χ12=1.287, P=.26; first correct report and last rumor: χ12=0.033, P=.86). CONCLUSIONS Our results highlight the importance and urgency of monitoring and correcting false or misleading reports on websites and personal social media accounts. The circulation of rumors can influence public health, and government bodies should establish guidelines to monitor and mitigate the negative impact of such rumors.

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The Management of Social Media in Major Public Health Emergencies

E3S Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/e3sconf/202125702044 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 257 ◽

pp. 02044

Author(s):

Xin Li

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Social Media ◽

Content Analysis ◽

Management Strategies ◽

Basic Theory ◽

The Novel ◽

Public Health Emergencies ◽

Novel Coronavirus

In this study, the concept, basic theory and application of the management of social media in major public health emergencies were expounded with the management of social media in the novel coronavirus pneumonia as the breakthrough point. With the related reports or information of the novel coronavirus pneumonia as the analysis sample, the role of social media in the pandemic was discussed from multiple aspects and perspectives by using the method of content analysis. On this basis, the management strategies of social media in major public health emergencies were further proposed.

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Endangering the Endangered: Impact of fake Covid-19 Social Media Communications in Zimbabwe

Religion, ethics and communication in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic - Pharos Journal of Theology ◽

10.46222/pharosjot.102.211 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Isaac Mhute ◽

Hugh Mangeya ◽

Ernest Jakaza

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Negative Impact ◽

The Novel ◽

Human Species ◽

The People ◽

Media Communications ◽

The Government ◽

Novel Coronavirus ◽

The Impact ◽

Great Danger

The human species is in great danger of extinction due to the novel coronavirus that was first detected in China around December 2019. By March 2021, the world had witnessed over 116million cases, of which 36,223 are Zimbabwean. The disease that the coronavirus stimulates is quite fatal and has seen 2.57million lives succumbing to it, of which 1483 are Zimbabwean, by the same date. No cure has been discovered for it yet, though scientific researchers have already discovered several vaccines with varying efficacies. Employing a socio-pragmatic approach, the chapter explores the impact of fake covid-19 social media communications on efforts to minimize infections and fatalities in Zimbabwe, an already endangered country. It accomplishes this by qualitatively analyzing purposively sampled fake communications in circulation on social media as well as some of the utterances and behaviors people make in response to them. The chapter demonstrates the negative impact of the communications on international mitigating efforts and emphasizes the need for the government, media practitioners and social workers to always be watchful for such misleading communications and in every case to quickly counter their impact by availing correct information to the people.

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PUBLIC REACTION TO COVID-19 ON TWITTER: A THEMATIC ANALYSIS

EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) ◽

10.36713/epra4518 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 349-358

Author(s):

Akif Mustafa ◽

Imaduddin Ansari ◽

Subham Kumar Mohanta ◽

Shalem Balla

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Social Media ◽

Thematic Analysis ◽

Public Attention ◽

The Public ◽

Emergency Situations ◽

Public Health Emergencies ◽

Health Authorities ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Public Reaction

Emergency situations typically lead to a plethora of public attention on social media platforms like ‘Twitter’. Twitter provides a unique opportunity for public health researchers to analyze untampered information shared during a disease outbreak. Considering the ongoing public health emergency, we conducted a study investigating the public reaction to COVID-19 pandemic around the world using in-depth thematic analysis of Twitter data. A dataset of 212846 tweets was retrieved over a period of seven days (from April 13, 2020, to April 19, 2020) via Twitter Application Programme Interface (API). The following five keywords were used to collect the tweets: “coronavirus”, “covid-19”, “corona”, “covid”, “covid19”. After data filtering and cleaning 6348 tweets were randomly selected for in-depth thematic analysis. Thematic analysis was done manually using a two-level coding guide. A total of six main themes emerged from the analysis: ‘sentiments and feelings’, ‘Information’, ‘General Discussion’, ‘Politics’, ‘Food’, and ‘Sarcasm or humor’. The aforementioned themes were divided into 26 sub-themes. The results of the thematic analysis show that 30.1% of the tweets were regarding ‘sentiments and feelings’, 15.6% were regarding ‘politics’, and 6.5% were related to ‘sarcasm or humor’. The present study is the first study that has analyzed the public response to COVID-19 on Twitter. The study demonstrates that social media platforms (like Twitter) can be used to conduct infodemiological studies related to public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic. We believe that the results of this study will be of potential interest to policymakers, health authorities, stakeholders, and public health and social science researchers. KEYWORDS:COVID-19, Twitter, Social Media, Coronavirus, Lockdown, Pandemic

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Multi-Objective Optimization of Integrated Civilian-Military Scheduling of Medical Supplies for Epidemic Prevention and Control

Healthcare ◽

10.3390/healthcare9020126 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 126

Author(s):

Hai-Feng Ling ◽

Zheng-Lian Su ◽

Xun-Lin Jiang ◽

Yu-Jun Zheng

Keyword(s):

Prevention And Control ◽

Large Scale ◽

Medical Services ◽

The Novel ◽

Multi Objective ◽

Medical Supplies ◽

Problem Instances ◽

Novel Coronavirus ◽

And Control ◽

Minimum Ratio

In a large-scale epidemic, such as the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19), there is huge demand for a variety of medical supplies, such as medical masks, ventilators, and sickbeds. Resources from civilian medical services are often not sufficient for fully satisfying all of these demands. Resources from military medical services, which are normally reserved for military use, can be an effective supplement to these demands. In this paper, we formulate a problem of integrated civilian-military scheduling of medical supplies for epidemic prevention and control, the aim of which is to simultaneously maximize the overall satisfaction rate of the medical supplies and minimize the total scheduling cost, while keeping a minimum ratio of medical supplies reservation for military use. We propose a multi-objective water wave optimization (WWO) algorithm in order to efficiently solve this problem. Computational results on a set of problem instances constructed based on real COVID-19 data demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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Indoor Environmental Quality in Dwellings and Lifestyle Behaviors during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Russian Perspective

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18115975 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (11) ◽

pp. 5975

Author(s):

Vladimir Reshetnikov ◽

Oleg Mitrokhin ◽

Elena Belova ◽

Victor Mikhailovsky ◽

Maria Mikerova ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Medical Students ◽

Environmental Quality ◽

Indoor Environmental Quality ◽

Lifestyle Behaviors ◽

Contagious Diseases ◽

Health Authorities ◽

Public Health Authorities ◽

Isolation Index ◽

Novel Coronavirus

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern, and as a response, public health authorities started enforcing preventive measures like self-isolation and social distancing. The enforcement of isolation has consequences that may affect the lifestyle-related behavior of the general population. Quarantine encompasses a range of strategies that can be used to detain, isolate, or conditionally release individuals or populations infected or exposed to contagious diseases and should be tailored to circumstances. Interestingly, medical students may represent an example of how the COVID-19 pandemic can form new habits and change lifestyle behaviors. We conducted a web-based survey to assess changes in lifestyle-related behavior of self-isolated medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then we analyzed the sanitary-hygienic regulations of the Russian Federation to determine the requirements for healthy buildings. Results showed that during the pandemic, the enforcement of isolation affects medical students’ lifestyle-related behavior and accompanies an increase in non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and healthy buildings are cutting-edge factors in preventing COVID-19 and NCDs. The Russian sanitary-hygienic regulations support improving this factor with suitable requirements for ventilation, sewage, waste management, and disinfection. Herein, assessing isolation is possible through the hygienic self-isolation index.

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Communicating Recommendations in Public Health Emergencies: The Role of Public Health Authorities

Health Security ◽

10.1089/hs.2019.0073 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 18 (1) ◽

pp. 21-28

Author(s):

Taylor A. Holroyd ◽

Oladeji K. Oloko ◽

Daniel A. Salmon ◽

Saad B. Omer ◽

Rupali J. Limaye

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Public Health Emergencies ◽

Health Authorities ◽

Public Health Authorities

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A Failure of Political Communication Not a Failure of Bureaucracy: The Danger of Presidential Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The American Review of Public Administration ◽

10.1177/0275074020941734 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 50 (6-7) ◽

pp. 614-620 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

William Hatcher

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Political Communication ◽

Political Polarization ◽

Medical Procedures ◽

The Novel ◽

Health Issues ◽

Social Distancing ◽

Health Related ◽

Novel Coronavirus ◽

Incorrect Information

President Trump’s communications during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic violate principles of public health, such as practicing transparency and deferring to medical experts. Moreover, the president’s communications are dangerous and misleading, and his lack of leadership during the crisis limits the nation’s response to the problem, increases political polarization around public health issues of social distancing, and spreads incorrect information about health-related policies and medical procedures. To correct the dangerous path that the nation is on, the administration needs to adopt a more expert-centered approach to the crisis, and President Trump needs to practice compassion, empathy, and transparency in his communications.

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Preparedness 3.0: Addressing the Future

Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness ◽

10.1017/dmp.2015.138 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 9 (6) ◽

pp. 728-729 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Georges C. Benjamin

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Climate Change ◽

Social Media ◽

Infectious Diseases ◽

Extreme Weather ◽

Common Occurrence ◽

Public Health Preparedness ◽

Public Health Emergencies ◽

State Sponsorship ◽

The Future

ABSTRACTThe last 14 years has taught us that that we are facing a new reality; a reality in which public health emergencies are a common occurrence. Today, we live in a world with dangerous people without state sponsorship who are an enormous threat to our safety; one where emerging and reemerging infectious diseases are waiting to break out; a world where the benefits of globalization in trade, transportation, and social media brings threats to our communities faster and with a greater risk than ever before. Even climate change has entered into the preparedness equation, bringing with it the forces of nature in the form of extreme weather and its complications. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2015;9:728–729)

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On collaborative reinforcement learning to optimize the redistribution of critical medical supplies throughout the COVID-19 pandemic

Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association ◽

10.1093/jamia/ocaa324 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Bryan P Bednarski ◽

Akash Deep Singh ◽

William M Jones

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Reinforcement Learning ◽

Medical Equipment ◽

Census Bureau ◽

Learning Models ◽

Public Health Emergencies ◽

Medical Supplies ◽

Learning Techniques ◽

Disease Impact ◽

Random States

Abstract objective This work investigates how reinforcement learning and deep learning models can facilitate the near-optimal redistribution of medical equipment in order to bolster public health responses to future crises similar to the COVID-19 pandemic. materials and methods The system presented is simulated with disease impact statistics from the Institute of Health Metrics (IHME), Center for Disease Control, and Census Bureau[1, 2, 3]. We present a robust pipeline for data preprocessing, future demand inference, and a redistribution algorithm that can be adopted across broad scales and applications. results The reinforcement learning redistribution algorithm demonstrates performance optimality ranging from 93-95%. Performance improves consistently with the number of random states participating in exchange, demonstrating average shortage reductions of 78.74% (± 30.8) in simulations with 5 states to 93.50% (± 0.003) with 50 states. conclusion These findings bolster confidence that reinforcement learning techniques can reliably guide resource allocation for future public health emergencies.

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The Evolution Model of Public Risk Perception Based on Pandemic Spreading Theory under Perspective of COVID-19

Complexity ◽

10.1155/2021/1015049 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2021 ◽

pp. 1-10

Author(s):

Yi-Cheng Zhang ◽

Zhi Li ◽

Guo-Bing Zhou ◽

Nai-Ru Xu ◽

Jia-Bao Liu

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Risk Perception ◽

Social Order ◽

Prevention And Control ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Control Measures ◽

The Public ◽

Public Health Emergencies ◽

Public Risk ◽

And Control

After the occurrence of public health emergencies, due to the uncertainty of the evolution of events and the asymmetry of pandemic information, the public’s risk perception will fluctuate dramatically. Excessive risk perception often causes the public to overreact to emergencies, resulting in irrational behaviors, which have a negative impact on economic development and social order. However, low-risk perception will reduce individual awareness of prevention and control, which is not conducive to the implementation of government pandemic prevention and control measures. Therefore, it is of great significance to accurately evaluate public risk perception for improving government risk management. This paper took the evolution of public risk perception based on the COVID-19 region as the research object. First, we analyze the characteristics of infectious diseases in the evolution of public risk perception of public health emergencies. Second, we analyze the characteristics of risk perception transmission in social networks. Third, we establish the dynamic model of public risk perception evolution based on SEIR, and the evolution mechanism of the public risk perception network is revealed through simulation experiments. Finally, we provide policy suggestions for government departments to deal with public health emergencies based on the conclusions of this study.

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