JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Monitoring public confidence and hesitancy is crucial for COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Social media listening can not only monitor public attitudes on COVID-19 vaccine in real-time, but also assess the dissemination and public engagement of these opinions.

Objective:

To assess global hesitancy, confidence and public engagement towards COVID-19 vaccination.

Methods:

We collected and manually coded 12886 social media posts mentioning COVID-19 vaccine from five global metropolises with high COVID-19 burden between June and July, 2020. After assessment, 7032 posts were included in analysis. We manually double-coded these posts using a coding framework developed according to the WHO’s Confidence, Complacency, and Convenience model of vaccine hesitancy, and conducted engagement analysis to investigate public communication about COVID-19 vaccine on social media.

Results:

Among social media users, 36.4% (571/1568) in New York, 51.3% (738/1440) in London, 67.3% (144/214) in Sao Paulo, 69.8% (726/1040) in Mumbai, and 76.8% (2128/2770) in Beijing indicated that they intended to accept COVID-19 vaccination. With high perceived risk of getting COVID-19, more tweeters in New York and London expressed lack of confidence in vaccine safety, distrust in governments and experts, and widespread misinformation and rumors. Tweeters from Mumbai, Sao Paulo and Beijing worried more about vaccine production and supply, whereas tweeters from New York and London had more concern on vaccine distribution and inequity. Negative tweets expressing lack of vaccine confidence and misinformation or rumors, had more followers and attracted more public engagement online.

Conclusions:

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is prevalent across the world, and negative tweets attract higher engagement on social media. It is urgent to develop an effective vaccine campaign that boosts public confidence and addresses hesitancy for COVID-19 vaccine rollout.