The Geography of Covid-19 Spread in Italy Using Social Media and Geospatial Data Analytics

• DOI: 10.1080/23800992.2021.1994813
• Publication Date: 2021-11-22T05:11:57Z
• Authors: Gabriela Fernandez; Carol Maione; Karenina Zaballa; Norbert Bonnici; Brian H. Spitzberg; Jarai Carter; Harrison Yang; Jack McKew; Filippo Bonora; Shraddha S. Ghodke; Chanwoo Jin; Rachelle De Ocampo; Wayne Kepner; Ming Hsiang Tsou
• Keywords: Pandemic

Since December 2019, Coronavirus has been spreading rapidly across the world. From its early stages, while rest of world was still new to COVID-19, Italy one first and most severely hit countries. The chronic nature COVID-19 outbreak untimely treatments were translated into an unstable social emotional environment. This study explores societal response wave pandemic in Italy, looking at geographic variations, policy perspectives, sentiments northern, central, southern regions. For this study, we collected nearly three million tweets associated with coronavirus Italian regions Lombardy, Lazio, Sicily, during months March-May, 2020. A sentiment analysis developed (i) identify spatio-temporal distribution polarity patterns anger, fear, joy; (ii) test correlation between these cases; (iii) determine statistical significance geographies. Findings provide insights on relationship variations case regional differences. These findings align those "Track IT. International Survey," that investigated Italians measures enforced by local governments. Overall, can be weaved together important implications for wellbeing economic perspective.