Social Media and Public Health Emergency of International Concern: The COVID-19 Outbreak
The coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic is the cause of several disasters on human health and livelihoods in many countries around the globe. Even though everyone is at risk of infections regardless of ethnicity, income, age, and political affiliation, the co
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and Magaly Moukoko Mbonjo2
AMBERO Consulting GmbH, 61476 Kronberg Im Taunus, Germany [email protected] 2 Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK [email protected]
Abstract. The coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic is the cause of several disasters on human health and livelihoods in many countries around the globe. Even though everyone is at risk of infections regardless of ethnicity, income, age, and political affiliation, the consequences of the epidemic will weigh enormously in the global south, at the level of the very fragile sanitary architecture, the economic, social and cultural fabric. This study examines the key determinants of social media adoption and the consequences of their use in managing a public health crisis of International Concern like COVID-19. We propose a theoretical framework resulting from a combination of several approaches, such as the Health Belief Model, the Technology Acceptance Model and the theory of Social Influence. Moreover, we use a mixed research method to carry out various investigations in our study. The findings and recommendations of this research will serve as a research base for government agencies, health organizations and associations in the reflections and strategic actions being implemented to effectively fight against COVID-19 and equip marginalized communities with efficient information through the use of social media. Keywords: COVID-19 Sub-Saharan Africa Public health crisis media TAM Health belief model Social influence
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1 Introduction The coronavirus belongs to a group of viruses responsible for lower respiratory tract infections. Some of its manifestations include symptoms such as cough, shortness of breath and acute respiratory distress [1]. Seven type of coronaviruses are responsible of human infections. In 2003, prior to the SARS-cov-2 (Covid-19) outbreak, SARS-cov emerged in China and affected 8096 people with a 10% mortality rate. In 2012, MERScov was detected in the Middle East and affected 2494 people with a 37% mortality rate [2]. The clinical manifestations of these three viruses may overlap. However phylogenetically, the SARS-cov-2 has a greater similarity with SARSlike coronaviruses derived from bats. Bats are therefore suspected to be the primary host of the novel coronavirus [3]. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2020 Published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 S. K. Sharma et al. (Eds.): TDIT 2020, IFIP AICT 617, pp. 623–634, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64849-7_55
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J. Kuika Watat and M. Moukoko Mbonjo
The first novel Coronavirus case was discovered in Wuhan (the 7th most populous city in China). The virus is said to have originated from a ‘wet market’ where wild animals were equally sold since the first four cases discovered in December 2019 were all in contact with that market [1]. Even though the secondary host has not been confirmed, wild animals sold at the market like pangolins have been incriminated. Animal to human transmission was followed by rapid h
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