The Evolution of Public Sentiments During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Case Comparisons of India, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States

• DOI: 10.2196/31473
• Publication Date: 2022-02-10T14:30:51Z
• Authors: May O Lwin; Anita Sheldenkar; Jiahui Lu; Peter Johannes Sc...; Wonsun Shin; Chitra Panchapakesan; Raj Kumar Gupta; Yinping Yang
• Keywords: Pandemic; Declaration

Public sentiments are an important indicator of crisis response, with the need to balance exigency without adding panic or projecting overconfidence. Given rapid spread COVID-19 pandemic, governments have enacted various nationwide measures against disease social media platforms providing previously unparalleled communication space for global populations.This research aims examine and provide a macro-level narrative evolution public on at national levels, by comparing Twitter data from India, Singapore, South Korea, United Kingdom, States during current pandemic.A total 67,363,091 posts January 28, 2020, April 2021, were analyzed 5 countries "wuhan," "corona," "nCov," "covid" as search keywords. Change in ("very negative," "negative," "neutral mixed," "positive," "very positive") compared between connection milestones health directives.Country-specific assessments show that negative predominant across all initial period pandemic. However, positive encompassing hope, resilience, support arose differing intensities countries, particularly Asian countries. In next stage Korea faced escalating waves cases, resulting sentiments, but appeared simultaneously. contrast, although Kingdom increased substantially after declaration emergency, strong parallel slow surface.Our findings facing similar outbreak concerns suggest potential associations government response actions both terms policy communications, sentiment trends. Overall, more concerted approach appears be associated stable less volatile over