Snapshot. "The forgotten virus". Rising number of COVID cases in Romania

On Tuesday, the National Institute of Public Health announced that 3,446 new cases of COVID-19 were reported during the week of July 22-28, an increase of 71% compared to the previous week. The timing is significant, as interest in the topic of COVID among most relevant web sources has been largely secondary in recent years. Mentions of the virus have risen especially during periods when it has been linked to other really topical issues. For example, the infection of US President Joe Biden this month was also a high point because the most relevant web sources paid more attention to political events overseas.

From data tallied by media intelligence software NewsVibe, the "Biden moment" generated the most mentions of COVID and with the highest impact. Another notable moment in this regard over the past six months was Astrazeneca's announcement that it was withdrawing the COVID vaccine from the market.

Grafic NewsVibe. Evolution of the number of mentions of Nicolae Ciucă's book title in the last 6 months

One of the big themes this summer has been rising temperatures. If we compare the mentions about this topic with those about COVID, in the last 3 months, we see that the number and impact of the latter are much lower.

Grafic NewsVibe. Comparison of the number and impact of COVID and heatwave mentions for the last three months

The most frequently mentioned events in articles or posts about COVID are related to political events and decisions: the infection of President Biden during a visit to Las Vegas; the message from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that the COVID-19 pandemic has facilitated the rise of the far-right; the decision of the EU General Court on the transparency of contracts for COVID vaccines. Mentions of current developments on the virus were therefore largely marginal in the most relevant web sources.

Graphic NewsVibe: top keywords included in COVID news and posts, at last month's level