COVID-19 Tweet IDs from Eight Countries During 2020 Pandemic

From March to November 2020, this dataset provides tweet IDs related to COVID-19 discourse, collected over eight months in the first year of the pandemic. It tracks keywords including generic terms like 'corona virus' and non-pharmaceutical interventions such as 'lockdown' and 'social distancing', based on a list from prior research.

Use Cases

• Analyze the frequency and co-occurrence of tracked keywords like 'lockdown' and 'social distancing' to map public discourse evolution.
• Study temporal patterns in tweet volume for specific terms such as 'n95' to understand public concern about protective equipment.
• Compare the spread of COVID-19 related keywords across different countries to assess regional variations in pandemic conversation.

Strengths

• Eight months of continuous data collection from March to November 2020.
• Keyword tracking includes specific non-pharmaceutical intervention terms like 'lockdown' and 'n95'.
• Data collection methodology references a prior published public health surveillance study.

Limitations

• Dataset consists only of tweet IDs, requiring hydration which may result in data loss due to deleted tweets.
• Geographic coverage is limited to eight unspecified countries, not a global sample.
• Temporal coverage ends in November 2020, missing later pandemic developments.

Provenance

Source

ICPSR Harvested Dataverse, author Siqi Wu.

Collection Method

Tweet IDs collected by tracking a defined list of COVID-19 keywords from Twitter.

Time Range

March 2020 to November 2020.

Freshness

Last metadata update was February 23, 2026, but the underlying data covers 2020.

Geography

Eight countries (specific countries not named).