COVID-19 warnings were on Twitter well before the outbreak of the pandemic
New study shows that posts revealing concern for 'pneumonia' circulated very early, suggesting social media can be an effective tool for epidemiological surveillance.
Even before public announcements of the first cases of COVID-19 in Europe were made, at the end of January 2020, signals that something strange was happening were already circulating on social media. A new study of researchers at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, published in END