key: cord-294320-4s6vxmy7 authors: Depoux, Anneliese; Martin, Sam; Karafillakis, Emilie; Preet, Raman; Wilder-Smith, Annelies; Larson, Heidi title: The pandemic of social media panic travels faster than the COVID-19 outbreak date: 2020-03-03 journal: J Travel Med DOI: 10.1093/jtm/taaa031 sha: doc_id: 294320 cord_uid: 4s6vxmy7 nan metonymic principle, where the images directly related to the physical epicentres crisis (the archaic imagery of quarantine and confinement) were often associated to places and people connected with this archaic imagery: Chinese restaurants, Chinese tourists, goods from Asia, etc. leading to widespread distrust and outburst of racism. 4 Chineselooking residents who have never set foot in China were one of the first victims of such viral racism. WHO`s Director General Dr Tedros calls this the fight against "trolls and conspiracy theories". Misinformation causes confusion and spreads fear, thereby hampering the response to the outbreak. "Misinformation on the coronavirus might be the most contagious thing about it", he says. The impact of media reporting and public sentiments may have a strong influence on the public and private sectors in making decisions on discontinuing certain services including airline services, disproportionate to the true public health need. Travel restrictions are one example, and we need to unpack the influence of social media on such measures that carry a huge economic loss. The spatio-temporal variability in the discussions on social media, specifically Twitter, is often not in line with the spatiotemporal occurrence and intensity of the outbreak. In addition to addressing the urgent need to scale-up public health measures to combat the outbreak, we need to combat the pandemic of social media panic. 5 To this end, it is important to conduct spatiotemporal analyses of the discourse and its association, or disassociation, with the epidemiological situation as this will allow spatiotemporal targeted communication and intervention campaigns to be executed by public health authorities. We need to rapidly detect and respond to public rumours, perceptions, For the current COVID-19 crisis, we call for the development of a real-time information sharing system, drawing from data and analyses from a range of social media platforms, in multiple languages, and across the global diaspora. This will enhance the ability of public health bodies and relevant stakeholders to respond to and understand the social dynamics of the increasingly fast and evolving spread of information and misinformation about the coronavirus and the outbreak and control measures. It will also reduce community panic, and unhelpful measures disproportionate to the cause. Contributions: All authors are part of CoV-IMPACT consortium, and contributed equally to this manuscript. Conflict of Interest none declared. The biggest pandemic risk? Viral misinformation The H1N1 pandemic: media frames, stigmatization and coping Travelers Give Wings to Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Mediating panic: The iconography of 'new' infectious threats Mediating panic: The iconography of 'new' infectious threats Tracking online heroisation and blame in epidemics Isolation, quarantine, social distancing and community containment: pivotal role for old-style public health measures in the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak Transnational quarantine rhetorics: public mobilization in SARS and in H1N1 flu COVID-19: fighting panic with information fairness and trust: understanding and engaging with vaccine trial participants and communities in the setting up the EBOVAC-Salone vaccine trial in Sierra Leone