Public Perceptions and Attitudes Toward COVID-19 Nonpharmaceutical Interventions Across Six Countries: A Topic Modeling Analysis of Twitter Data (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND In the absence of a vaccine or curative treatment, non-pharmaceutical interventions regimes have been implemented by governments around the world, to slow the spread of COVID-19. The success of these NPIs has varied between countries and is likely to relate to the degree of uptake and adherence by the community. Understanding public attitudes towards these NPI regimes and the factors that promote public understanding and support for them would provide valuable insight to governments seeking to encourage acceptance of and adherence to these interventions. The analysis of social media offers the opportunity to retrieve these insights. OBJECTIVE The objective of this paper is to describe and compare the public Twitter- based discussion of NPIs implemented during the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic, across six anglophone countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom, and United States). The aim was to determine which NPIs received support from the public and whether there were identifiable elements of public discourse that offered meaningful insight into potential enablers and barriers to community adherence. METHODS We collected 2.5 million tweets related to the COVID-19 pandemic across six countries. These tweets were posted between January 1, 2020, and April 30, 2020. Tweets underwent intensive pre-processing, resulting in the inclusion of 787,691 tweets deemed fit for analysis. A hybrid methodology integrating computational and qualitative analysis was adopted in this study, where the topic model MetaLDA was used to construct topics document sets which were coded and qualitatively analyzed. A total of 94 topics relating to NPIs were identified. A comparative analysis of the public views of NPIs between countries was then conducted. Visualizations and quantitative analysis supported this. RESULTS Our comparison of public discussion of NPIs showed that hand-hygiene was encouraged, and quickly adopted and across all countries surveyed. The spectrum of NPIs aimed at social-distancing required a period of adjustment before being broadly accepted, although, stay-at-home orders were called for in many cases before governments implemented these NPIs. There was contrasting public reaction to restrictions on travel and the closure of businesses. Countries, such as New Zealand, where restrictions were implemented early, showed broad community support and intent to comply. In other countries, such as Canada and the US, there was protracted debate over such restrictions and support for adherence was not as easily interpreted. CONCLUSIONS Attitudes indicative of lowered community adherence to NPIs appear to be rooted in both the complexity of the imposed regime, and the corresponding lack of understanding of the regime in the community. Our study supports the hypothesis that public understanding and responsiveness is supported by consistency, clarity and timeliness of government messaging regarding NPI directives.

Impacts of worldwide individual non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 transmission across waves and space

“…The effectiveness of NPIs on pandemic mitigation had been demonstrated by previous studies that mostly focused on the first wave of the pandemic ( Baker et al, 2021 , Flaxman et al, 2020 , Huang et al, 2021a , Lai et al, 2020a ; Li et al, 2021 , Tian et al, 2020 ), with limited analysis of subsequent waves and multi-scale research ( Hale et al, 2021b ). The implementation of NPIs in the first wave had, to some degree, changed human knowledge and perceptions, behaviours and responses to mitigate the outbreaks ( Doogan et al, 2020 , Farooq et al, 2020 , Geldsetzer, 2020 , Hu et al, 2020 , Brauner et al, 2021 ). The enduring importance of NPI responses to COVID-19 has also been highlighted ( Moore et al, 2021 ).…”

Covid-19 on Twitter: an analysis of risk communication with visuals

“…Various world leaders have utilised the platform to inform, boost morale and prompt political discussion (34). Given such uptake, it is not surprising that health measures trended in the Twittersphere (35)(36)(37). This study documents several health risk measures communicated, often in combination.…”

The effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns on motor skill development of 6- and 7-year old children in the Netherlands: a longitudinal study

“…While school and sports groups were closed for Dutch children as well, their outside free-play activities were not tightly restricted. Additionally, perceptions of restrictive measures (27) and compliance with restrictive measures (28) differed between countries. Possibly, the lockdown in the Netherlands did not restrict physical activities to the extent that it impacted the development of motor skill competence.…”

“…It seems like many factors during the lockdown come into play in shifting of physical activities and it appears that we cannot simply state that COVID-19 related restrictive measures have resulted in deterioration of motor skill competence in children. Certain factors are directly related to COVID-19, such as imposed lockdown measures, perception of and compliance to these measures (27,28), the amount of attention for maintenance of physical activity participation during the pandemic (both on a country level and on a school and parent level) and personal factors that de ne to what extent children were actually facilitated and able to maintain a certain level of physical activities (29,30). Other factors are related to motor skill development: it becomes more and more apparent that motor skill development in general is the result of complex interrelations of factors.…”