{"id":35013,"date":"2021-06-10T13:13:28","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T17:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/researchdev\/2021\/06\/10\/social-media-use-one-of-four-factors-related-to-higher-covid-19-spread-rates-early-on-2\/"},"modified":"2021-06-10T13:13:28","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T17:13:28","slug":"social-media-use-one-of-four-factors-related-to-higher-covid-19-spread-rates-early-on-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/research\/2021\/06\/10\/social-media-use-one-of-four-factors-related-to-higher-covid-19-spread-rates-early-on-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Social media use one of four factors related to higher COVID-19 spread rates early on"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Researchers from 快播视频 and the University of British Columbia have found social media use to be one of the factors related to the spread of COVID-19 within dozens of countries during the early stages of the pandemic.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The researchers say this finding resembles other examples of social media misinformation ranging from the initial phase of vaccine rollout to the 2021 Capitol riot in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Countries with high social media use leading to off-line political action prior to the pandemic, as surveyed before the pandemic by V-Dem (a database from the University of Gothenburg), showed the strongest trend toward a high&nbsp;<em>R<sub>0<\/sub><\/em>&nbsp;\u2013 an indicator of how many secondary infections one infected individual is likely to cause \u2013 and a faster initial spread of the virus. For example, Canada when compared to the United States had a lower level of social media use leading to off-line action and a lower&nbsp;<em>R<sub>0<\/sub><\/em>. A set of multiple factors, including social media, could explain the different outcomes between the two countries, although the findings do not imply causation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat we found was surprising, that the use of social media to organize off-line action tended to be associated with a higher spread rate of COVID-19. This highlights the need to consider the dynamic role that social media plays in epidemics,\u201d says Assistant Professor\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.yorku.ca\/experts\/?name_or_keyword=Jude+Kong&amp;research_area=&amp;submit=Search+the+Guide&amp;search=Y\">Jude Kong<\/a>\u00a0of 快播视频\u2019s Faculty of Science, who led the research with University of British Columbia Postdoctoral Fellow Edward Tekwa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube aligncenter wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Influence of country characteristics on COVID 19 spread\" width=\"1778\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7ICj1CPX6So?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The research team examined national level demographic, disease, economic, habtat, health, social and environmental characteristics that existed before the pandemic across 58 countries, including Ghana, Canada and the United States. They broke those characteristics down into covariates and analyzed which ones had the strongest associations with vulnerability to the virus before government interventions were put in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe world has changed to modify&nbsp;<em>R<sub>0<\/sub><\/em>. Social media, for example, could help rather than hurt now that we have more reliable information to pass around. But some of the factors identified in our research have not changed and could be informative for the current and future pandemics,\u201d says Tekwa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kong and Tekwa found a country with an intermediate number of youth (between the ages of 20 and 34), an intermediate GINI inequality factor (the amount of income inequality across a population), and a population that primarily lives in cities of more than one million people were three additional factors with the strongest relationship to the rate of spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe found that with a lower youth population, the spreading was very low, while a country with an intermediate level of youth population had the highest rate of spreading of COVID-19,\u201d says Kong of the Department of Mathematics &amp; Statistics. \u201cInterestingly, we found that as the youth population increases, it was associated with a lower number of cases, rather than a higher number.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pollution, temperature, and humidity did not have a strong relationship with&nbsp;<em>R<sub>0<\/sub><\/em>. The overall goal was to find baseline epidemiological differences across countries, shape future COVID-19 research, and better understand infectious disease transmission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s Next?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDifferent countries have different characteristics that predispose them to greater vulnerability,\u201d says Kong. \u201cWhen we are looking to compare COVID-19 progression among countries, we need to take into account those pre-existing country characteristics. The reason being is that if you just do a simple analysis the result will be misleading.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Understanding the&nbsp;initial phase will help&nbsp;account for pre-existing, intrinsic differences, as regions try to identify their own best management strategy going forward. Kong says they are already using this data to inform policymakers in Africa about which communities are most vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0252373\">paper<\/a>\u00a0was published today in the journal\u00a0<em>PLOS ONE<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-very-light-gray-background-color has-background grey-bg-block\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>To learn more about Research &amp; Innovation at York: follow us at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/YUResearch\">@YUResearch<\/a>; watch the new&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=G5ldMOFmlZM&amp;list=PLE7AE62D4FD0E0AEB&amp;index=2&amp;t=0s\">animated video<\/a>, which profiles current research strengths and areas of opportunity, such as artificial intelligence and Indigenous futurities; and see the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.yorku.ca\/research\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">snapshot infographic<\/a>, a glimpse of the year\u2019s successes.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Media Contact:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sandra McLean, 快播视频 Media Relations, 416-272-6317,\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:sandramc@yorku.ca\">sandramc@yorku.ca<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers from 快播视频 and the University of British Columbia have found social media use to be one of the factors related to the spread of COVID-19 within dozens of countries during the early stages of the pandemic. The researchers say this finding resembles other examples of social media misinformation ranging from the initial phase [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":455,"featured_media":35014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,6234,39,103,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-of-science","category-journals-and-publications-research-publications","category-news","category-research-publications","category-science"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Social media use one of four factors related to higher COVID-19 spread rates 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