Quantifying changes in vaccine coverage in mainstream media as a result of COVID-19 outbreak

BackgroundAchieving vaccine-derived herd immunity depends on public acceptance of vaccination, which in turn relies on peoples understanding of its risks and benefits. The fundamental objective of public health messaging on vaccines is therefore the clear and concise communication of often complex information, and increasingly the countering of misinformation. The primary outlet shaping societal understanding is the mainstream online news media. There was widespread media coverage of the multiple vaccines that were rapidly developed in response to COVID-19. We studied vaccine coverage on the front pages of mainstream online news, using text-mining analysis to quantify the amount of information and sentiment polarization of vaccine coverage delivered to readers. MethodsWe analyzed 28 million articles from 172 major news sources, across 11 countries between July 2015 and April 2021. We employed keyword-based frequency analysis to estimate the proportion of coverage given to vaccines in our dataset. We performed topic detection using BERTopic and Named Entity Recognition to identify the leading subjects and actors mentioned in the context of vaccines. We used the Vader Python module to perform sentiment polarization quantification of all our English-language articles. ResultsWe find that the proportion of headlines mentioning vaccines on the front pages of international major news sites increased from 0.1% to 3.8% with the outbreak of COVID-19. The absolute number of negatively polarized articles increased from a total of 6,698 before the COVID-19 outbreak 2015-2019 compared to 28,552 in 2020-2021. Overall, however, before the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine coverage was slightly negatively polarized (57% negative) whereas with the outbreak, the coverage was primarily positively polarized (38% negative). ConclusionsBecause of COVID-19, vaccines have risen from a marginal topic to a widely discussed topic on the front pages of major news outlets. Despite a perceived rise in hesitancy, the mainstream online media, i.e. the primary information source to most individuals, has been strongly positive compared to pre-pandemic vaccine news, which was mainly negative. However, the pandemic was accompanied with an order of magnitude increase in vaccine news volume that due to pre-pandemic low frequency sampling bias may contribute to a perceived negative sentiment. These results highlight the important interactions between the volume of news and overall polarisation. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first systematic text mining study of vaccines in the context of COVID-19.

Genomics and epidemiology of a novel SARS-CoV-2 lineage in Manaus, Brazil

Cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Manaus, Brazil, resurged in late 2020, despite high levels of previous infection there. Through genome sequencing of viruses sampled in Manaus between November 2020 and January 2021, we identified the emergence and circulation of a novel SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern, lineage P.1, that acquired 17 mutations, including a trio in the spike protein (K417T, E484K and N501Y) associated with increased binding to the human ACE2 receptor. Molecular clock analysis shows that P.1 emergence occurred around early November 2020 and was preceded by a period of faster molecular evolution. Using a two-category dynamical model that integrates genomic and mortality data, we estimate that P.1 may be 1.4-2.2 times more transmissible and 25-61% more likely to evade protective immunity elicited by previous infection with non-P.1 lineages. Enhanced global genomic surveillance of variants of concern, which may exhibit increased transmissibility and/or immune evasion, is critical to accelerate pandemic responsiveness. One-Sentence SummaryWe report the evolution and emergence of a SARS-CoV-2 lineage of concern associated with rapid transmission in Manaus.