Figure 4: Number of days for NSOs to post the first COVID-19 related tweets after the lockdown policy in the respective countries 18
Number of NSOs
16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0
Pre
0-7 days post
7-14 days post
14-21 days post > 21 days post
Pre-or-post lockdown: When was the first COVID-19-related tweet shared by the NSO?
In a second scenario, NSOs might have reacted via Twitter influenced by the global trend, and not so much by national perceptions. Most of the early tweets on COVID19 happened during the first three weeks of March, when several countries started to implement social-distancing and confinement policies. Further analysis shows that the number of NSOs who start tweeting about COVID-19 for the first time appears similar to the logarithmic trend of the number of confirmed cases worldwide. 4. Most tweets published by NSOs about confirmed cases at national and sub-national level Among the total 1876 tweets related to COVID-19, 83% of all tweets found on NSO Twitter timelines related to the number of cases in the countries, or to press releases from governments on their policy responses and the impact on NSO’s activities. These tweets also included the total number of cases and deaths at the sub-national level or in different demographic groups. Most data in these tweets were compiled by either the NSO or the ministry of health. A less common type of information, 8% of all tweets, refers to data on how the crisis has impacted employment, prices, tourism, the overall economy and people’s daily life. An even smaller number of tweets refers to effects on public survey requests. Discussion and results on alternative data also represent a very small share (5%) of the tweets. The low percentage of tweets on data beyond the number of cases may be due to the dual shock on both demand for and supply of statistics9 in these countries. As many socio-economic indicators for Q1 are due to be released in late-May and June, NSOs may face challenges to communicate these results, including explaining the impact of the pandemic to the public; informing them about the alternative methods used; and avoiding user misinterpretations.
Conclusion Dissemination and communication of statistical products is part of the core mandate of an NSO. During the COVID-19 crisis, NSOs all over the world are facing hurdles to keep up with core statistical production, let alone communicating quickly and accurately to ensure that citizens are informed with disaggregated, timely and high quality socio-economic information. Yet effective communication strategies for NSOs are key ingredients to interact with data users and enhance trust in data and evidence amidst a global pandemic. This is particularly crucial as COVID-19 has been described as an “infodemic” by the WHO, characterised by abundance of information from myriad sources. It is therefore vital that NSOs react quickly and accurately to address a large variety of public and private stakeholders to produce and communicate on trusted, high quality data. Evaluating Twitter posts from the onset of the pandemic shows that NSOs have communicated rather late regarding the crisis, with content largely focusing on basic data on confirmed cases, but not on statistical production issues or capacity needs. The coming months will be crucial to shed light on the mediumterm effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on NSOs and their communication strategies. By the end of Q2 2020, many quarterly indicators are due to be published. NSOs will face many challenges in communication, including informing the data users on the impact caused by the shock in source data collection and avoiding possible misinterpretation on the socio-economic impact of the crisis. The work presented in this article sketches a pathway to understand the communication of NSOs worldwide, and eventually help them to learn from each other. Further analysis may explore the reasons for the delayed
Issue No. 72, July 2020 - The OECD Statistics Newsletter 13