Tracking And Understanding Public Reaction During COVID-19: Saudi Arabia As A Use Case

The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) has had a huge impact on economies and societies around the world. While governments are taking extreme measures to reduce the spread of the virus, people are being affected by these new measures. With restrictions like lockdowns and social distancing, it has become important to understand the emotional response of the public towards the pandemic. In this paper, we study the reaction of Saudi Arabian citizens towards the pandemic. We utilize a collection of Arabic tweets that were sent during 2020, primarily through hashtags that originated in Saudi Arabia. Our results showed that people had maintained a positive reaction towards the pandemic. This positive reaction was at its highest at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis and started to decline as time passed. Overall, the results showed that people were highly supportive of each other through this pandemic. This research can help researchers and policymakers in understanding the emotional effect of a pandemic on societies.