GeoCovaxTweets: A global analysis of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination discourse on social media

Abstract

Social media platforms play a crucial role in providing valuable information during crises, such as pandemics. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a global public health crisis, and vaccines are the key preventive measure for achieving herd immunity. However, some individuals use social media to oppose vaccines, undermining government efforts to eliminate the virus. This study introduces the “GeoCovaxTweets” dataset, consisting of 1.8 million geotagged tweets related to COVID-19 vaccines from January 2020 to November 2022, originating from 233 countries and territories. Each tweet includes state and country information, enabling researchers to analyze global spatial and temporal patterns. An extensive set of analyses are performed on the dataset to identify prominent topic clusters and explore public opinions across different vaccines and vaccination contexts. The study outlines the dataset curation methodology and provides instructions for local reproduction. We anticipate that the dataset will be valuable for crisis computing researchers, facilitating the exploration of Twitter conversations surrounding COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination, including trends, opinion shifts, misinformation, and anti-vaccination campaigns.