Journal of Advocacy, Research and Education

5-12

Authors: Jane Han

With more people staying at home since the COVID-19 outbreak, there has been a growing number of digitally active users vocal about government responses to the pandemic, especially regarding lockdown measures. User-generated content on social networking sites (SNS) has served as a valuable source of information for exploring public attitudes toward the pandemic, as SNS users often reveal their perceptions of government actions through these platforms. SNS have allowed for large-scale data collection from citizens within a specific timeframe and location, making information readily available in real-time. Brazil presents a particularly interesting case, as it suffers from one of the highest mortality rates in Latin America despite having the highest Global Health Security Index (GHSI) in the region. This paper examines public attitudes in São Paulo, Brazil’s hardest-hit city, using Twitter as the preferred platform for text mining. Because information on public sentiment toward government lockdown responses may help weigh in on future policy decisions under similar developments, sentiment analysis is then conducted on the data using the VADER model (Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner) as a way to conceptualize the results.

21-24

Authors: Isaac Bamfo

The COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has changed the direction of the global economy since its inception. Though researchers and experts are working hard to estimate its impact on the global economy, it is difficult to project its long term effect. The focus of this paper was to briefly analyse the initial, existing, and possible future effects of the pandemic. Beginning from China, a serious negative impact was seen across all forms of socio-economic activities due to the pandemic. With the spread of the virus from China to other countries, many countries have reported a decline in economic growth. With several economic projections made by experts and researchers, the impact of COVID-19 on countries that depend much on tourism and foreign trade will be heavily affected with estimated costs between 2.5 to 3.0 % of global gross domestic product each month. I observed that the over-dependence of retrospective estimations of other serious global health disasters like the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) may lead researchers to underestimate the long-term effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Notwithstanding this fact, some implications could be drawn from the devastating effects of these past traveler-related contagious diseases (SARS, MERS, and EVD) regarding gross domestic product growth, tourism, transportation, education, production of goods, and provision of services for the local and international economy.