Timely and effective media coverage's role in the spread of Corona Virus Disease 2019.

Abstract

For all humanity, the sudden outbreak of Corona Virus Disease 2019 has been an important problem. Timely and effective media coverage is considered to be one of the effective approaches to control the spread of epidemic in early stage. In this paper, a Sentiment‐enabled Susceptible‐Exposed‐Infected‐Recovered (SEIR) model is established to reveal the relationship between the propagation of the epidemic and media coverage. The authors take the positive and negative media coverage into consideration when implementing the Sentiment‐enabled SEIR model. This model is constructed by parameterizing the number of current confirmed cases, cumulative cured cases, cumulative deaths, and media coverage. The numerical simulation and sensitivity analysis are conducted based on the Sentiment‐enabled SEIR model. The numerical analysis confirms the rationality of the Sentiment‐enabled SEIR model. The sensitivity analysis shows that positive media coverage acts a pivotal part in reducing the figure for confirmed cases. Negative media coverage has an effect on the figure for confirmed cases is not as significant as that of positive media coverage, but it is not negligible.