Tweets vs Pathogen Spread: A Case Study of COVID-19 in American States

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Shabani, Sara, Jafarbegloo, Sahar, Raeisi, Sadegh, Ghanbarnejad, Fakhteh
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866911094374662144
author Shabani, Sara
Jafarbegloo, Sahar
Raeisi, Sadegh
Ghanbarnejad, Fakhteh
author_facet Shabani, Sara
Jafarbegloo, Sahar
Raeisi, Sadegh
Ghanbarnejad, Fakhteh
contents The concept of the mutual influence that awareness and disease may exert on each other has recently presented significant challenges. The actions individuals take to prevent contracting a disease and their level of awareness can profoundly affect the dynamics of its spread. Simultaneously, disease outbreaks impact how people become aware. In response, we initially propose a null model that couples two Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered (SIR) dynamics and analyze it using a mean-field approach. Subsequently, we explore the parameter space to quantify the effects of this mutual influence on various observables. Finally, based on this null model, we conduct an empirical analysis of Twitter data related to COVID-19 and confirmed cases within American states. Our findings indicate that in specific regions of the parameter space, it is possible to suppress the epidemic by increasing awareness, and we investigate phase transitions. Furthermore, our model demonstrates the ability to alter the dominant population group by adjusting parameters throughout the course of the outbreak. Additionally, using the model, we assign a set of parameters to each state, revealing that these parameters change at different pandemic peaks. Notably, a robust correlation emerges between the ranking of states' Twitter activity, as gathered from empirical data, and the immunity parameters assigned to each state using our model. This observation underscores the pivotal role of sustained awareness transitioning from the initial to the subsequent peaks in the disease progression.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_04187
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Tweets vs Pathogen Spread: A Case Study of COVID-19 in American States
Shabani, Sara
Jafarbegloo, Sahar
Raeisi, Sadegh
Ghanbarnejad, Fakhteh
Social and Information Networks
Physics and Society
Populations and Evolution
The concept of the mutual influence that awareness and disease may exert on each other has recently presented significant challenges. The actions individuals take to prevent contracting a disease and their level of awareness can profoundly affect the dynamics of its spread. Simultaneously, disease outbreaks impact how people become aware. In response, we initially propose a null model that couples two Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered (SIR) dynamics and analyze it using a mean-field approach. Subsequently, we explore the parameter space to quantify the effects of this mutual influence on various observables. Finally, based on this null model, we conduct an empirical analysis of Twitter data related to COVID-19 and confirmed cases within American states. Our findings indicate that in specific regions of the parameter space, it is possible to suppress the epidemic by increasing awareness, and we investigate phase transitions. Furthermore, our model demonstrates the ability to alter the dominant population group by adjusting parameters throughout the course of the outbreak. Additionally, using the model, we assign a set of parameters to each state, revealing that these parameters change at different pandemic peaks. Notably, a robust correlation emerges between the ranking of states' Twitter activity, as gathered from empirical data, and the immunity parameters assigned to each state using our model. This observation underscores the pivotal role of sustained awareness transitioning from the initial to the subsequent peaks in the disease progression.
title Tweets vs Pathogen Spread: A Case Study of COVID-19 in American States
topic Social and Information Networks
Physics and Society
Populations and Evolution
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.04187