Assessment of the Early Detection of Anosmia and Ageusia Symptoms in COVID-19 on Twitter: Retrospective Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

During the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, social media has been extensively used to amplify the spread of information and to express personal health-related experiences regarding symptoms, including anosmia and ageusia, 2 symptoms that have been reported later than other symptoms.

Objective

Our objective is to investigate to what extent Twitter users reported anosmia and ageusia symptoms in their tweets and if they connected them to COVID-19, to evaluate whether these symptoms could have been identified as COVID-19 symptoms earlier using Twitter rather than the official notice.

Methods

We collected French tweets posted between January 1, 2020, and March 31, 2020, containing anosmia- or ageusia-related keywords. Symptoms were detected using fuzzy matching.

SUBMITTER: Faviez C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10521907 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature