This article demonstrated the power of Twitter for world leaders to rapidly and directly communicate public health information about COVID-19 to citizens.
By analyzing tweets from Group of Seven (G7) world leaders, researchers concluded that Twitter can be a powerful tool to rapidly communicate with citizens during public health crises. Most tweets about COVID-19 were categorized as “informative,” with many tweets including links to reputable government websites. This is particularly encouraging because the communication of world leaders can influence the opinions and behaviors of the public so it is important to communicate accurate information. In addition to “informative” tweets, leaders also communicated “morale-boosting” tweets followed by “political” tweets related to COVID-19.