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The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the first global "Infodemic" in the era of social media. Understanding how governments deal with the negative impacts of the infodemic (e.g., public panic) has become a priority. This paper uses the theoretical framework of the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to explore mechanisms for alleviating panic associated with the infodemic. It considers, in particular, the quality of information circulated on Government Social Media (GSM) as the central route and local government trust as the peripheral route. An empirical study was conducted using data from a focus group interview and a questionnaire survey collected within the first three weeks following the citywide lockdown of Wuhan, China. The results show that as: (1) Quality of GSM information does not significantly reduce public panic, but local government trust significantly increases people's pandemic prevention knowledge; (2) Pandemic prevention knowledge is a critical mediator between information quality of GSM and public panic, as well as local government trust and public panic; and (3) Information quality of GSM significantly increases people's trust in local governments. This paper contributes to the literature on infodemic and government social media and provides implications for practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the first global “Infodemic” in the era of social media. Understanding how governments deal with the negative impacts of the infodemic (e.g., public panic) has become a priority. This paper uses the theoretical framework of the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to explore mechanisms for alleviating panic associated with the infodemic. It considers, in particular, the quality of information circulated on Government Social Media (GSM) as the central route and local government trust as the peripheral route. An empirical study was conducted using data from a focus group interview and a questionnaire survey collected within the first three weeks following the citywide lockdown of Wuhan, China. The results show that as: (1) Quality of GSM information does not significantly reduce public panic, but local government trust significantly increases people’s pandemic prevention knowledge; (2) Pandemic prevention knowledge is a critical mediator between information quality of GSM and public panic, as well as local government trust and public panic; and (3) Information quality of GSM significantly increases people’s trust in local governments. This paper contributes to the literature on infodemic and government social media and provides implications for practice.

Objective: To understand the current situation of stigmatizing attitudes toward Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China and compare it with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).Methods: Convenient sampling and vignette-based methods were used to recruit participants on WeChat. A demographic form and adopted stigma scale were used to collect participants' demographic information and stigmatizing attitudes toward COVID-19 and AIDS.Results: A total of 13,994 questionnaires were included in this study. A high portion of participants tend to avoid contact with individuals affected with COVID-19 (74.3%) or AIDS (59.0%), as well as their family members (70.4% for COVID-19 and 47.9% for AIDS). About half of the participants agreed that affected persons could not only cause problems to their own family but also have adverse effects on others (59.6% and 55.6% for COVID-19, 56.9 and 47.0% for AIDS). The agreements with statements about perceived stigma were similar but slightly higher than those about personal stigma in both COVID-19 and AIDS. Participants' agreements with all statements regarding personal and perceived stigma attitudes between COVID-19 and AIDS were all statistically significant (p < 0.001). Participants obtained COVID-19-related information mainly from social media (91.3%) and newspaper or television (77.1%) during the epidemic, and 61.0% of them thought information from newspapers or television was the most reliable.Conclusion: Several similarities and differences of people's attitude toward COVID-19 and AIDS were found. Avoidance, blame, and secondary discrimination to diagnosed persons and their surrounding persons were the main representations of COVID-19-related stigma. Stigma of COVID-19 had less moral link but more public panic. Experience from HIV-related stigma reduction and prevention can be applied to reduce COVID-19-related stigma.

INTRODUCTION The response to the COVID-19 pandemic is a tragic aberration gripping the world. As the disease evolves, uncertainty and fear of harm rise, which can significantly diminish community health and wellbeing. This article stresses the importance of public health preparedness in overcoming social and health risks associated with public panic. Since the COVID-19 outbreak began in late 2019, the numbers of people affected and fatalities continue to mount, causing panic and crippling vital economic and social activities. Authorities have failed to prevent inaccurate and misleading headlines that agitate the public and impinge on public communication. Fake news and rumors about magical products claiming to cure the virus abound. Additionally, people assumed emergency preparation meant stockpiling resources. Amid growing fears, consumers raided supermarkets and pharmacies for supplies, from masks to hygiene products, and people have fought over protective gear as tensions flared among anxious customers. When general panic starts driving political decision-making, public health professionals may be unable to implement strategies based on informed decisions. Researchers argue that government secrecy and non-transparency diminish people’s confidence and trust, creating panic (Wilson et al., 2007). Even naming the disease possibly triggered epidemic-related trauma and the ensuing public mistrust and disbelief of authorities; the panic has also sparked a wave of racial prejudice (Titanji, 2020). Although a series of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, from Avian flu to Zika virus, may have created more public awareness, whether leaders can translate this newfound awareness into meaningful policies and action is debatable. Globally, attention is growing on responses from state leaders, as some try to downplay the epidemic’s severity to maintain “business as usual”. In early March 2020, the Indonesian government was still in a state of denial and was attempting to convince the general public that the country was free from COVID-19 (Lindsey & Mann, 2020) Instead, currently confirmed cases are growing rapidly, suspected cases are far above the testing capacity, and case fatality is at an alarming rate. In contrast, several countries took drastic action by declaring travel restrictions and locking down cities. As an example, New Zealand decided to implement level-4 measures, with strict movement restrictions, not long after they confirmed their first case on 28 February 2020; they have recently begun a gradual exit from coronavirus lockdown (Knight, 2020). The public expects leaders to curb the spread of COVID-19 responsibly, appropriately, effectively, and proactively. Meanwhile, leaders are urging the public to stay calm and adopt new norms during this rapidly evolving situation. This crisis is not limited to any individual and requires cooperation rather than a unilateral response. DISCUSSION How to do this? A critical approach to pandemics is to ensure the preparedness of both healthcare capacity and public health systems (Jain, Duse, & Bausch, 2018). To respond to emergency needs—to have the capacity to treat rapidly increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients—it is important for each country to have existing policies and action plans for healthcare facilities to temporarily expand service capacity, cancel or postpone elective procedures, and engage in rapid intervention to conserve medical supplies, including personal protective equipment (Gan, Tseng, & Lee, 2020). Measures including recalling recently retired healthcare workers and providing drive-through services for chronic disease medications have been implemented to lessen pressures on hospitals (Wang, Ng, & Brook, 2020). While healthcare capacity is the ability to care for patients with COVID-19, the public health system aims to prevent people from being infected and mitigating the health risks associated with COVID-19. The public health system is important for strengthening community vigilance by promoting effective sanitation, a healthy lifestyle, and food safety, and preventing injuries, inequality, and violence. This involves not only healthcare professionals, but also well-planned strategies that consider various stakeholders’ perspectives and concerns (Glik, 2007). Despite the lockdown, we have seen healthcare workers and people in the community providing the basic essentials for those in need—from food, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), mental health support, and evidence-based research communication, to virtual musical performances and concerts. Organizations in the virtual sphere, including WhatsApp (WhatsApp Inc, 2020) and TikTok, are partnering with health agencies to increase accessibility to health information. The best outbreak response is a collective response (Gille & Brall, 2020), which could effectively contain the disease and the panic caused by the disease. People naturally experience fear when dealing with a catastrophic event. This unprecedented threat triggered panic purchasing or falling for viral hoaxes, which reflects misconceptions about the problem, most likely because people lack trust in the measures taken (Heide, 2004), When designing and implementing public health measures, we must ensure we do not just acknowledge that, but actively engage relevant stakeholders. In an age of uncertainty, community solidarity and collective action are key to maintaining community vigilance against the crisis (Aldrich et al., 2015).

With the rapid development of the Internet, an emergency of the leakage of hazardous chemicals into rivers arouses wide-ranging social instability in terms of public panic, in addition to the physical damage. Considering the important role of the online community system, this paper explores a crisis information release strategy of the mass media for controlling public panic stemming from emergency events. In particular, a multi-agent-based simulation model is proposed for online public opinion dissemination during emergencies in China that includes four main agents: cyber citizens, opinion leaders, the government and mass media. Using four typical accidents of hazardous chemical leakage into rivers in China as case studies, interesting conclusions can be obtained. (1) The mass media plays an extremely crucial role in guiding public panic when emergencies occur by amplifying both the speed and range of online opinion dissemination. (2) If the government conceals the potential damage from the accident, the mass media should not follow the government or immediately deny the government, which might instigate a much larger-scale public panic. (3) If the government publishes the truth, the mass media can support the government to help promote the dissemination of online opinion and further mitigate public panic. (4) The mass media should carefully observe online public opinion and report the integrated result when most agents display positive emotions, thus largely pacifying panicking agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tends to propose a multi-agent based model to discover effective information publication policy to control public panic caused by unconventional emergencies. In particular, information in this model is classified into four types: real favorable information, real crisis information, favorable rumor and crisis rumor, in order to simulate different policies with different information types and publication times. Taking the water pollution accident of the Songhua River as an example, the empirical results demonstrate that government should pay attention to public image and publish information seriously, release the real information, and guild public opinion actively as soon as responding measures are determined, in order to avoid public panic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]