COVID-19 Goes on Twitter. Greek Conversations and Discussions

The COVID-19 disease emerged in late 2019 in China, is still rapidly spreading across the globe. Greece as many other countries enforced strict preventative policies. As a result, the daily life of people has changed and conversation turned online. The paper aims at investigating discussions around COVID-19 on Twitter in Greece. Twitter was selected as it played a significant role during the global health crisis. The presence of the keywords “Κορονοιος”, “κορονοιός”, “κορωνοιος”, “Κορωνοϊός”, “Κορωνοιος” in tweets over four periods of time were recorded. NodeXL Pro was used to identify word pairs, create semantic networks and analyze them. Main topics of conversation were extracted. ‘New cases’ are heavily discussed all of the times showing anxiety about community transmission of the virus. A shift on different views was also recorded. Before the lockdown people showed their concerns about stocking up foods and other essentials, followed by positive hashtags in the fight to save lives and encouraging each other and finally the debate over the deaths. The paper may help policy makers regarding societal issues during the pandemic.