Abstract
COVID-19 has emerged as a global pandemic caused by its highly transmissible nature during the incubation period. In the absence of vaccination, containment is seen as the best strategy to stop virus diffusion. However, public awareness has been adversely affected by discourses in social media that have downplayed the severity of the virus and disseminated false information. This article investigates COVID-19 related Twitter activity in May and June 2020 to examine the origin and nature of misinformation and its relationship with the COVID-19 incidence rate at the state and county level. A geodatabase of all geotagged COVID-19 related tweets was compiled. Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression was employed to examine the association between social media activity and the spatial variability of disease incidence. Findings suggest that MGWR could explain 80% of the COVID-19 incidence rate variations indicating a strong spatial relationship between social media activity and spread of the Covid-19 virus. Discourse analysis was conducted on tweets to index tweets downplaying the pandemic or disseminating misinformation. Findings indicate that sites of Twitter misinformation showed more resistance to pandemic management measures in May and June 2020 later experienced a rise in the number of cases in July.
Highlights
Coronavirus (COVID-19) related illness has been identified as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO)
Falsehood diffuses significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth (Vosoughi et al, 2018), and it is imperative that we examine disinformation among those who are most impacted
Findings from our discourse analysis suggest that the five states of Kansas, Oregon, California, Georgia, and Florida, where people downplayed COVID-19 and propagated disinformation in May, have experienced a massive surge in their known COVID-19 cases as of early July
Summary
Coronavirus (COVID-19) related illness has been identified as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). Known in the scientific communities as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2, it was first identified in Wuhan, China (Linton et al, 2020; Xie & Chen, 2020) It is highly transmissible during the incubation period and spreads from person to person through droplets in the air or surface. The shortage of essential supplies, including ventilators, ICU beds, and personal protective equipment (PPE), has been acute and undersupplied to medical workers during the current pandemic (Timmis & Brüssow, 2020) Such scarcities have led to bidding wars among governors in regions where high numbers of cases have been noted (Solomon, Wynia, & Gostin, 2020). Unemployment benefits have been held up for many, pushing many service workers into working jobs deemed essential while risking their lives through exposure without proper protective equipment (Cohen & Hsu, 2020)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
