This study determined that officials need to balance alarming messages with reassurance to better manage crises.

By analyzing alarming and reassuring tweets of official communication sources during the COVID-19 outbreak, researchers provide insights about how messages change when retweeted. Knowing the difference in the way social media users retweet messages provides officials important information to managing a virus outbreak. For example, educational or awareness campaigns flagging highly alarming messages and providing reassuring and informative messages to reduce chaos and uncertainty could be employed.