Free Republic

"I see them as being like a conduit," says one epidemiologist by , Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today Through the use of social media, celebrities and other people in the public eye helped to shape the public discourse and opinions on the COVID-19 pandemic and public health efforts, according to an analysis of over 45,000 tweets posted from January 2020 to March 2022. While there were small differences in sentiment observed, a "broadly polarized negative tone" was noted among certain public figures who shared a consistent pattern of emotional content related to their risk perceptions, political ideologies, and health-protective...