 Role of media coverage in mitigating COVID-19 transmission: Evidence from ChinaNing Liu, Zhuo Chen and Guoxian Bao Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2021, vol. 163, issue C Abstract: This paper evaluates the impact of COVID-19 media coverage in mitigating its spread in China during the early phase of the pandemic. We construct a provincial-level dataset on COVID-19 and link it with population mobility data, among other control variables, to estimate how media coverage mitigates the spread of COVID-19. Seemingly unrelated regressions are used to examine the simultaneous impact of media coverage on the number of new cases and close contacts. The results show that the effect of media coverage on COVID-19 transmission in China had an inverse-U curvature and was mediated by within- and across-province population mobility. Our simulation results indicate that COVID-19 media coverage in China was associated with a potential reduction of 394,000 cases and 1.4 million close contacts during January 19 and February 29, 2020. Our results also provide strong support for the use of contact tracing in mitigating COVID-19 transmission. Keywords: COVID-19; China; Media coverage; Contact tracing; Population mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:163:y:2021:i:c:s0040162520312610 DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120435 Access Statistics for this article Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.