Relationship between user behaviors and number of COVID-19 positives interpreted from Twitter data #9

Date: 2021.10.05
Researcher: Masashi Toyoda
Organization: Institute of Industrial Science, the University of Tokyo

Analysis of risk behavior-related Tweets

・Tweets related to actions of high infection risk were extracted and compared with positive COVID-19 cases. Tweets including the following keywords were subject to analysis:
-Drinking session, End-of-year Party, Christmas Party, New Year Party (Respectively 飲み会、忘年会、クリスマスパーティ、新年会 in Japanese)
-Karaoke (カラオケ in Japanese)
-Fitness center (ジム in Japanese)
-Hanami (“Flower-viewing”, 花見 in Japanese)
-Barbecue (バーベキュー in Japanese)
・The situations within Tokyo and Osaka regions were compared with each other, using location information from Twitter user profiles.

Summary

・Excursion-related tweets increased rapidly in number due to the termination of state of emergency declaration.
-The pattern is identical to those from earlier terminations (June 1st, 2020, and June 21st, 2021)
-No rapid increase was seen following the termination on March 22, 2021, since excursions and positive COVID-9 cases were already seeing increase before termination.
・Since after the second wave, a tendency is seen where an increase in positive COVID-19 cases above a certain amount is followed by a voluntary decrease in excursions.
・Excursion-related tweets tend to increase after a decrease in new positive COVID-19 cases above a certain amount.