[Air-L] Article about Covid-19 early warnings on Twitter

[Monica Marra]

For those interested in the relationship between the Covid-19 pandemic 
and social networks, may I point out this new paper based upon Twitter 
and published on "Scientific Reports" yesterday:

Early warnings of COVID-19 outbreaks across Europe from social media, 
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81333-1

Abstract: "We 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."

Regards,

MM


-- 
Monica Marra
INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica
Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio
v. Gobetti 93/3
I-40129 Bologna, Italy
uff. 3W1

Scopus author ID: 7102382905
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Monica_Marra