Early warnings of COVID‑19 outbreaks across Europe from social media

EN BREF ...

"We analyze data from Twitter to uncover early-warning signals of COVID-19 outbreaks in Europe in the winter season 2019–2020, before the first public announcements of local sources of infection were made. We show evidence that unexpected levels of concerns about cases of pneumonia were raised across a number of European countries. Whistleblowing came primarily from the geographical regions that eventually turned out to be the key breeding grounds for infections. These findings point to the urgency of setting up an integrated digital surveillance system in which social media can help geolocalize chains of contagion that would otherwise proliferate almost completely undetected. Public health surveillance plays a critical role in helping national governments to monitor the emergence of infectious diseases, promptly identify a state of emergence, and propose effective measures to curb an outbreak1. Since January 2020, when the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)." En bref issu de l'étude.