A Long-Lasting Public Emotional Trauma after the Recovery of COVID-19: A Full-Year Tracking of Online Public Sentiment

Background: As the outbreak of COVID-19 has caused widespread panic in the general public, it is essential to understand how public sentiment has changed. Methods: In the current study, we continuously tracked online public sentiment through the year 2020 by analyzing emotion reflected on 64,723,242 posts across China’s largest social media platform Sina Weibo. Findings: We found that the pandemic not only affected online public sentiment in the initial outbreak but also induced long-term negative effects even in the aftermath of the successful recovery from the pandemic. The long-term negative effect was not due to the pandemic’s severity either locally or globally, or even the post-pandemic economic recession. Rather, we speculate that the long-term negative effects may have resulted from the prolonged emotional trauma associated with the COVID-19 outbreak. Interpretation: COVID-19 induces long-term negative effects of public sentiments even in the aftermath of the successful recovery from the pandemic. It reminds public health and government administrators of the need to pay heed to public mental health even once the pandemic has concluded. Funding Statement: The Hunan Key Research and Development Project Grant (No. 2020SK2094), the National Key Technologies R&D Program of China Grant (No. 2015BAH22F01), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants (No. 31771209). Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing interest. Ethics Approval Statement: The study was approved by the ethics committee of Hunan University and East China Normal University.