Long-term Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Public Sentiments in Mainland China: Sentiment Analysis of Social Media Posts (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND As the outbreak of COVID-19 has caused a wide range of panic in the general public, it is essential to understand how online public sentiments change during the pandemic given its importance for mental health policy. OBJECTIVE Previous studies consistently showed a devastating negative impact of COVID-19 on public sentiments after the outbreak. However, it remains unclear the variation of public sentiment during the recovery phase of the pandemic. METHODS In the current study, we continuously tracked online public sentiment through the year 2020 by analyzing emotion reflected on 64,723,242 posts across China’s largest social media platform Sina Weibo. RESULTS We found that the pandemic not only affected online public sentiment in the initial outbreak but also induced long-term negative effects even in the aftermath of the successful recovery from the pandemic. The long-term negative effect was not due to the pandemic’s severity either locally or globally, or even the post-pandemic economic recession. CONCLUSIONS COVID-19 induces long-term negative effects on public sentiments even in the aftermath of the successful recovery from the pandemic. It reminds public health and government administrators of the need to pay heed to public mental health even once the pandemic has concluded.