Tweet volume and frequency
After pre-processing, a total of 39,726 unique Tweets were identified across the three COVID-19 related hashtags. The volume of Tweets (Fig. 1) in each hashtag varied considerably across the 7-day period: #COVID19 (1,518 – 2,259), #SARSCoV2 (1,084 – 2,640), #Coronavirus (1,566 – 1,982). Trends in the volume of Tweets for #COVID19 and #SARSCoV2 were similar across the 7-day period, and both hashtags had a peak in the number of Tweets on the 3rd (Friday) and 6th (Monday) of April (Fig. 1).
Figure 1: Trends in the volumes of Tweets by hashtags
Tweets posted on these two days (See Points A, B, C and D in Fig 1) were further explored to gain insight into what may have triggered a heightened public response across the two hashtags. Table 1 provide some examples of Twitter discussions on both days.
Table 1: Examples of Tweet posted on the days with highest Tweet Volumes in #SARSCoV2 and #COVID-19
Date
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#SARSCOV2
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#COVID19
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3rd of April
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Point A
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Point B
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Globally: 1,056,256 confirmed #coronavirus #covid19 cases; 55,770 fatalities = ~5.3% or 1 in ~19 deaths.
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How long did it take to reach one million #COVID19 confirmed cases in the
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John Hopkins 4/3/2020 12:31AM PDT:
#SARSCoV2 (virus) #COVID19 (disease):
Total Confirmed 1,076,017 Total Deaths 58…
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COVID-19 Updates (globally) Total cases: 1,093,103. Dead: 58,729 Recovered: 228,039 Last updated: April 03, 2020…
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Here's a study that everyone might want to read about miracle cure of chloroquine/hydroxyxhloroquine+azithromycin.…
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Another study shows the benefit of HCQ in #COVID19 Efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19:
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XXXXX on effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine: 'I think this is the beginning of the end of the pandemic…
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Preach! THE FIX:
XXXXX, an infectious disease specialist, on using hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin …
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6th of April
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Point C
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Point D
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We hope British Prime Minister Boris Johnson pulls through, hopefully without requiring intubation and ventilator….
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UK PM Boris Johnson in intensive care with #COVID19 This virus can hurt anyone Im terrified for my sick, sufferin…
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So Boris has been moved to ICU. It's quite clear that #SARSCoV2 does not discriminate. Whilst I do not agree with a…
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I was at a hospital where there were a few #coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you will be ple…
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Results presented in Table 1 show that topics related to “Hydroxychloroquine” and “Hospitalisations of the British Prime minister” and “reaching 1 million cases of coronavirus globally” were topics similarly discussed by users of #COVID19 and #SARSCoV2 on both days.
In terms of frequency, Coronavirus related terms (e.g. “Coronavirus”, “covid19” and “sarscov2”) were the most frequently used terms across all three hashtags (Fig S1). Each had a frequency count of more than 6,000. The words “Pandemic”, “trump”, “people”, “Covid”, “coronavirus” were similarly tweeted across all hashtags. Results of all three hashtags combined showed that “coronavirus”, was the most tweeted word, occurring more than 7000 times.
Figure 2: Sentiment of Tweets by hashtags
Sentiment analysis:
Results of the sentiment analysis (Fig 2.) showed that the majority of words used in the Tweets posted conveyed a negative sentiment towards the pandemic (#COVID19, 63.9%; #Coronavirus: 65.6%; #SARSCoV2 63.5%). The #Coronavirus had the largest proportion of words with a negative sentiment (65.6%). The words “trump” and “virus” were the most tweeted words that conveyed a negative and positive sentiment respectively (See Table S1).