Fig 1.
Volume of global Covid-19 narratives & Covid-19 incidence rates.
Prevalence of 10 virus-related keywords (Coronavirus, Covid-19, Covid, nCoV, SARS-CoV-2, Wuhan Virus, Virus, Disease, Epidemic, Pandemic) experienced exponential growth from a baseline of 100 words per million in October 2019 to 5500 words per million in April 2020—a 55-fold increase. The prevalence of global Covid-19 narratives dovetails the global Covid-19 incidence rate across 20 countries.
Fig 2.
Global Covid-19 narratives across 20 countries.
Pre-pandemic narratives (Oct’19–Dec’19; coded ‘green’) focused on general infectious disease topics of prevention and treatment. Early pandemic narratives (Jan’20–Feb’20; coded ‘orange’) were breaking news of Covid-19. The brief transition from Early to Peak Pandemic narratives (Mar’20–May’20; coded ‘red’) underscored the pandemic’s rapid spread across six regions. Peak pandemic narratives included testing, societal risk and vulnerability, mitigation and lockdown, economic crisis, death.
Table 1.
Pre-pandemic topics and collocates.
Table 2.
Early pandemic topics and collocates.
Table 3.
Peak pandemic topics and collocates.
Fig 3.
Global convergence and regional divergence in Covid-19 narratives across six continents.
Pre-pandemic narratives (Oct’19–Dec’19; coded ‘green’) were divergent across regions with Africa focused on infectious diseases (e.g., monkeypox), Asia on dengue fever, Oceania on plant-related fungal diseases and North America on Lyme disease and AIDS. Early and Peak Pandemic evidenced a global convergence, reflecting the omnipresence of Covid-19 globally. The brief transition from early (coded ‘orange’) to peak (coded ‘red’) pandemic narratives underscored the pandemic’s rapid spread across six continents. Emerging from the embers of the pandemic’s peak are nascent recovery narratives (coded ‘blue’) that are regionally divergent—Oceania focused on hope and an uncertain future while North America focused on re-opening the economy and tackling discrimination.
Fig 4.
Content of regional Covid-19 narratives across six continents.