Early warnings of COVID-19 outbreaks across Europe from social media

Scientific Reports - Tập 11 Số 1
Milena Lopreite1, Pietro Panzarasa2, Michelangelo Puliga3, Massimo Riccaboni4
1Department of Economics, Statistics and Finance, University of Calabria, Calabria, Italy
2School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK
3Institute of Management, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy
4IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca, Italy

Tóm tắt

AbstractWe analyze data from Twitter to uncover early-warning signals of COVID-19 outbreaks in Europe in the winter season 2019–2020, before the first public announcements of local sources of infection were made. We show evidence that unexpected levels of concerns about cases of pneumonia were raised across a number of European countries. Whistleblowing came primarily from the geographical regions that eventually turned out to be the key breeding grounds for infections. These findings point to the urgency of setting up an integrated digital surveillance system in which social media can help geo-localize chains of contagion that would otherwise proliferate almost completely undetected.

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Scientific Reports

Tập 11 Số 1

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