Lockdown News Rises, Media Talk about Schools Spikes, Launching our U.S. Presidential Election Monitor

Key Takeaways

• News about lockdowns increases as cases resurge in badly affected areas
• Media chatter about closed schools and the impact on children peaks in certain countries
• Announcing the launch of our 2020 U.S. Presidential Monitor

Go To Coronavirus News Monitor

Mentions of Lockdown Surge Form Second Wave

The Coronavirus news monitor is showing that a spike in the share of news mentioning “lockdown” reflects the fact that many countries are reintroducing measures to stop the spread of a second wave of coronavirus cases.

This is most clearly shown in the example of Australia, where co-mentions recently hit a 3-month high after a surge in cases in Melbourne prompted authorities to place the whole state of Victoria back under lockdown, and where neighboring New South Wales has now also started to introduce social distancing measures, including banning ‘singing, dancing, and mingling at weddings’.

Lockdown is also dominating the news in other countries too, with the topic ranked highest by media exposure in 11 out of the 20 countries with the highest number of coronavirus cases, based on July 16 data.

Concerns About Schools Remaining Closed

The continued closure of schools and its impact on children is another topic that has seen a rise in column inches.

The topic of “School Closures” saw a massive spike higher in the news about COVID-19 in UK Spain and Italy.

Schools in all 3 countries remain closed until the autumn term. In the UK primary schools reopened temporarily in June before closing after just a week, and apart from that, are only open to the children of key workers and those sitting GCSEs.

U.S. Presidential Election Monitor Now Live

Our 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Monitor is now live, enabling users to access forecasts of which candidate is likely to win based on our news analytics model.

The monitor includes state-level analytics, an interactive map, news sentiment, media exposure and model projections.

Click here to visit the monitor and sign up for an election monitor newsletter with updates and insights.

Monitor Highlights

Lying below the interactive map on the media monitor is the Media Exposure Table which shows changes in the share of the news about COVID for countries and key sectors.

On the default setting, countries are shown listed along with their COVID sentiment and media exposure, and 1-day percentage changes.

At the top of the table is a list of selections that users can toggle through and select. These include heavily-impacted industry groups - such as Pharmaceuticals. Airlines and Tourism - Treatments, including drugs such as Remdesivir and vaccines under trial. The ‘Politicians’ selection re-loads the table to show lists of world leaders relevant to COVID.

Selecting on ‘Treatments’ refills the table with lists of Coronavirus drugs along with their media exposure and percentage daily change.

Research has shown that in the case of Pharmaceutical stocks, levels of media exposure often provide a leading indicator to higher future returns, and the principle may be more widely applicable.

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