Study reveals what communities are talking about during outbreak

The COVID-19 outbreak has caused panic in communities nationwide and across the globe. While people are sheltering-in-place, the conversations about the pandemic are ongoing.

Zencity, a digital discourse aggregator that transforms data into actionable insights for local governments has been monitoring social media conversations regarding the outbreak since March 1. They’ve found people, of course, have questions and concerns, but they’re also spreading misinformation. Local governments, Zencity says, are on the front lines of tackling this crisis and calming the panic.

According to Zenity’s report:

“While it might feel like the conversation on COVID19 is only happening in the media, our analysis found that city residents are very actively engaged in this conversation. While on average public health related conversations only make up for less than 5 percent of resident comments, since March 1st we see more than 21 percent of the comments being about Public Health.”

Breaking it down by topic, Zencity found that the most important point of conversation, overwhelmingly, was school closures. Public event cancellations came in second, followed by transportation and employment.

“The men and women of local governments, public safety and public health organizations are at the front lines of tackling this crisis. One of their key responsibilities at this time is to share effective and reliable information with their communities, and to take immediate action around the issues that concern their residents,” Zencity’s CEO Eyal Feder-Levy said in a statement. “This report, aggregated from real discourse of multiple communities, provides an understanding of what are some of the key issues every city/county needs to be tackling to directly address their communities needs. We salute these professionals for carrying out their vital tasks at this crucial time.”

Click here to view the full report.