What people share about the COVID-19 outbreak on Twitter? An exploratory analysis.
BACKGROUND
The recent outbreak of respiratory illness caused by COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, has received global attention as it has infected thousands of individuals there, and later it has also been reported from other countries internationally. This study aims at performing an exploratory study on Twitter to understand the information shared among the community regarding the COVID-19 outbreak.


METHODS
COVID-19 related tweets were collected from Twitter using keywords from 18 January to 25 January 2020. Top-ranking tweets were taken as samples and then categorised based on the content. Expressions or opinion tweets were analysed qualitatively to understand the mindset of the people regarding the outbreak. Theme wise reachability evaluation of the messages was also performed.


RESULTS
Based on the content of the tweets, five themes were evolved: (1) general information; (2) health information; (3) expressions; (4) humour and (5) others. 57.42% of messages are general information followed by expressive tweets (24.12%). Humorous messages were liked the most, whereas health information tweets were retweeted the maximum. Fear was the predominant emotion expressed in the messages.


CONCLUSION
The results of the study would be useful to focus on the dissemination of the right information and effective communication on Twitter related to health and outbreak management.
['Karmegam|Dhivya|D|http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3307-8704', 'Mapillairaju|Bagavandas|B|']
D001294:Attitude to Health D000086382:COVID-19 D002681:China D018352:Coronavirus Infections D015438:Health Behavior D006801:Humans D033181:Information Dissemination D058873:Pandemics D011024:Pneumonia, Viral D061108:Social Media D057545:Social Stigma
BMJ health informatics public health