Did SARS-CoV-2 Also Contaminate Swiss Mass Media? A Retrospective Analysis of French-Speaking News Articles During the First Pandemic Wave

Abstract

Given the critical role of media in times of crisis, particularly for relaying scientific knowledge and political decisions, we evaluated to what extent the first COVID-19 pandemic wave affected the treatment by traditional media of important societal topics. We searched a database of 650 French-speaking Swiss media outlets using specific keywords and reported the number of publications per month containing these items, associated or not with SARS-CoV-2. The number of publications related to viruses increased 12-fold during the first semester 2020, while the media coverage of topics about bacteria, parasites, and fungi remained stable. During the first pandemic wave, media generated a larger number of publications treating of political and medical subjects than before the pandemic, whereas the coverage of other topics was unchanged. All topics were viewed through the prism of the pandemic, up to 82% of the publications being associated with COVID-19. The media largely covered all medical aspects related to SARS-CoV-2 infection and offered scientists multiple opportunities to communicate with the public. However, their influence was strongly challenged by the capacity of social networks to disseminate rumors and misinformation. We also assessed the articles published in traditional media during the five subsequent epidemic waves, showing that the largest media peaks occurred during the first infection wave studied extensively in the present work, and during the huge fifth infection wave due to Omicron variant BA1. Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how important it is for science communication to harness the tremendous power of social media.

1. Introduction

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus emerged in December 2019 in China and rapidly spread worldwide, generating a major pandemic and public health crisis and causing a disease named ‘COVID-19’ by the World Health Organization (WHO). The first pandemic wave of SARS-CoV-2 took place in Switzerland between March and April 2020 [1]. Although it was not the highest or the longest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, it strongly impacted the Swiss society, essentially because of its abrupt start and because a partial lockdown was enforced between 16 March and 11 May 2020, to contain the spread of the infection. The closure of schools, services, and non-essential shops as well as movement restrictions and mandatory teleworking, together with the fear of a health-threatening virus, seriously affected the daily life of the general population and was of course reflected in mass media. In times of crisis, media play a critical role in relaying scientific knowledge and political decisions to the general population [2]. They also greatly contribute to shaping public perception and individual attitudes towards public health issues [3]. Moreover, media may amplify the perceived risk of some major threat such as war or pandemics [4]. However, during pandemics, the reliability of the news has been highly unequal and therefore in some countries, media output led to a growth in the public’s concern about the quality and truth of news content, as has been nicely shown in a recent study from the USA [5]. This was likely unique in the USA, where a strong polarization and politicization has already been observed from March to May 2020, at the very start of the pandemic [6].

In this study, we analyzed publications from over 650 French-speaking Swiss media outlets, searching for specific keywords, associated or not with words defining SARS-CoV-2, and we reported the number of publications containing these items per month. This analysis allowed us to evaluate how the COVID-19 pandemic modified the attention given by traditional media to microbiology and other health-related topics. In addition, we also assessed to what extent the pandemic situation affected the treatment of frequently covered societal topics such as social aspects, leisure, politics, economy, and ecology.

The COVID-19 pandemic generated a large number of publications about the role of social media in the diffusion of COVID-19-related information and particularly about its role in propagating rumors, misinformation, and fake news [7,8,9,10,11]. However, traditional media did not receive the same attention and, to our knowledge, only a few studies have analyzed their role during the pandemic [2,12,13]. Other reasons to focus on traditional media in this report are (i) that their quality is likely higher, and their content should thus better reflect the key questions addressed in the news and (ii) the trust of lay persons is higher towards traditional media than towards social networks.

2. Material and Methods

2.1. Studied Period

According to medical criteria, the first pandemic wave took place in Switzerland between 9 March and 27 April (https://corona-data.ch, accessed on 9 July 2020); however, the lockdown period ended later (11 May). In the present study, we defined the period of the first COVID-19 wave as March, April, and May 2020.

2.2. Searching Database

The software ARGUSavenue^® (version 2024.12.11.1) and specific keywords were used to search ARGUS DATA INSIGHTS^®, a comprehensive database regrouping over 650 French-speaking traditional Swiss media outlets (print media, radio, and TV channels) (https://www.argusdatainsights.ch, accessed between 9 and 17 July 2020). Keywords (listed in Supplementary Tables S1 (French) and S2 (English translation)) were related (i) to microbiology, and (ii) to social, political, or medical topics, as well as to leisure, economy, and ecology. They were either associated or not with those corresponding to COVID-19 (coronavirus*, COVID*, SARS*) using the ‘’AND/OR/NOT’’ options. Searches were performed between 9 July 2020 and 17 July 2020 and were restricted to articles in French published between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2020.

Extracted data were transferred to Microsoft Excel^® 2016 for treatment and to GraphPad Prism version 8.3.0 for Windows to prepare final graphs (GraphPad Software, La Jolla, CA, USA).

2.3. Epidemiology and Media Coverage

Using the same ARGUS database and the same keywords, we conducted an additional analysis on the period from 1 January 2020 to 31 July 2022, in order to see how media coverage was similar (or not) during the different epidemic infectious waves of SARS-CoV-2. The daily number of SARS-CoV-2 infections documented during this prolonged period for all of Switzerland was downloaded from the website of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (SFOPH) on 15 December 2022. Please note that these data come from mandatory reporting carried out by laboratories, medical practices, and hospitals in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

2.4. Keyword Specificity

The specificity of the keywords defining a given topic was analyzed when a lack of specificity could be suspected. Specificity was assessed by manually examining about 10% of the publications retrieved and determining if they indeed fall in the scope of the topic. Examined publications were randomly chosen.

2.5. Statistical Analyses

Statistical analyses were performed using GraphPad Prism 8.3.0 software (GraphPad Software Inc., La Jolla CA, USA). Mean numbers of publications per month during a 6-month period were compared using unpaired an t test with a 95% confidence interval and two-tailed p value. * indicates a p value < 0.05; ** indicates a p value < 0.01.

3. Results

3.1. Microbes in Media

The first objective of our study was to evaluate how the first COVID-19 pandemic wave (March to May 2020) affected the media coverage of microbiology topics in French-speaking Switzerland.

As reported in Figure 1a,b, during the 18 months preceding the pandemic period, similar numbers of articles related to bacteria and to viruses were published, while parasites and fungi were considerably less covered in media. During the first semester of 2020, the number of publications on viruses increased 12-fold as compared to the preceding period (Figure 1c) and peaked at 360 publications in March 2020. This increase is due to the COVID-19 outbreak, as demonstrated by the increased number of documents containing the words “coronavirus”, “COVID”, or “SARS”. Simultaneously, there was a substantial drop in the number of articles mentioning viruses other than coronavirus (Figure 1c).

On the other hand, the media coverage of other microorganisms, such as bacteria, parasites, and fungi remained unchanged during the first pandemic wave. It is worth noting here that the treatment of publications mentioning bacteria is very changeable and peaks five times at over 20 publications per month during the pre-pandemic period. A maximum of 36 publications was reached in December 2019 due to the major financial support of the Swiss National Science Foundation to two large projects on microbiota and on antimicrobial resistance.

As shown in Figure 1b, during the 18 months preceding the pandemic period, a marked peak in the number of publications regarding viruses other than coronavirus was observed only once, in October 2018. It corresponds to a measles outbreak at the University of Lausanne. During the same pre-pandemic period, only two publications referred to coronavirus. It was mentioned as a cause of respiratory tract infections or as an example of a zoonotic agent. During the period of the first COVID-19 wave, about 96% of all articles mentioning viruses were indeed focused on coronavirus. The remaining articles were focused on other medically important viruses (such as tick-borne encephalitis virus or HIV) as well as on computer-associated viruses.

This last observation opened the question of the specificity of our search keywords, the French term “virus” also being used in contexts outside microbiology. To evaluate if our retrieved publications were specific to the microbiology field, we manually and carefully examined 10% of them (randomly chosen), looking for the presence of the keywords used to define a group of publications (see Supplementary Tables S1 and S2) and we determined if they indeed fell in the scope of the targeted group. Our results indicated that when precise words such as “COVID-19” or “Coronavirus” were used, the specificity of the retrieved publications reached 80% (32/40 examined publications). As expected, when a generic term such as “virus” was used, the specificity dropped to 38% (15/40 examined publications). However, if the word “virus” was more precisely defined by its association with “SARS”, “COVID”, or “Coronavirus”, then specificity reaches a high level again (75%).

3.2. SARS-CoV-2 Largely Contaminated All Topics Treated in Mass Media During First Pandemic Wave

In the second part of the study, we were interested in evaluating to what extent the pandemic situation affected the treatment by mass media of frequently covered societal topics. We focused on five general topics: social aspects, leisure, politics, economy, and ecology, as well as medical aspects related to microbes and infectious diseases. We determined how many publications were generated on these six topics during four 6-month periods: three periods before the pandemic and one period encompassing the first COVID-19 wave (Figure 2a,b).

Our results indicated that social matters and leisure are by far the predominant themes covered in media, being 2 to 3 times more often dealt with than other subjects. However, this observation should be taken cautiously since the broadness of a topic is linked to the keywords chosen to define it (see Supplementary Tables S1 and S2). The number of publications on a given topic might thus reflect its true coverage in the media in a biased manner. This approach is however perfectly suited to reflect changes in media coverage occurring over time.

We observed that the media coverage of most topics did not significantly vary before versus during the first semester of 2020, with the noticeable exception of political and medical topics whose treatment significantly increased during the first semester of 2020 (Figure 2b,c). In addition, a large proportion of all publications was covered in conjunction with COVID-19 in March, April, and May 2020 (

Table 1. Number of publications mentioning COVID-19 during first pandemic wave.

March–May 2020
Topics	Total Numbers of Publications	Numbers of Publications Mentioning Coronavirus	%
Social	1255	700	55.78
Leisure	972	593	61.01
Politics	437	359	82.15
Medicine	654	515	78.75
Economy	396	236	59.60
Ecology	215	108	50.23

and Figure 3).

Indeed, 50–61% of the articles on social matters, leisure, economy, or ecology published during this period mentioned coronavirus, while political and medical topics were treated in relation to COVID-19 in up to 82% and 79% of the publications. Thus, our analysis revealed that, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland and during the lockdown, SARS-CoV-2 “contaminated” all the main topics in the mass media and most of the information provided to the population via traditional channels was viewed through the prism of the pandemic.

To go deeper into our analysis, we chose to investigate in more details the impact of COVID-19 on the media coverage of the topics “social” and “leisure”, since they recorded the highest number of publications, and on the topics “politics” and “medicine”, since their coverage significantly increased during the first semester of 2020. Economy and ecology were not further analyzed.

3.3. Media Coverage of Social-Related Topics

The topic “social” encompasses five aspects which are (i) education, (ii) family, (iii) old age, (iv) poverty, and (v) death. When performing a detailed analysis of the number of publications dealing with these five different aspects, we observed that education is by far the most covered topic (Figure 4a). However, it is unequally treated during the 18-month pre-pandemic period studied and several peaks in the number of publications are visible. Two of them could be correlated to specific events: the first one in October 2018 corresponds to a measles outbreak at Lausanne University; the second, in January 2020, is related both to the Youth Olympic Games organized in Lausanne and to a climate demonstration with Greta Thunberg.

It is noteworthy that we observed an important increase in the number of publications concerning old age in March 2020 due to the vulnerability of old persons to COVID-19 (Figure 4a). We also observed a surge in the media coverage of poverty associated with coronavirus in May 2020 and more generally during the whole first wave period. The mean number of publications per month on this topic tripled during the first pandemic wave as compared to the pre-pandemic period. This increased media coverage of poverty is probably explained by the major impact of the lockdown on economically vulnerable persons.

3.4. Media Coverage of Leisure-Related Topics

The second topic that receives a lot of media attention daily is leisure. We performed a deeper analysis of this subject by dividing the retrieved publications into four different categories: (i) culture, (ii) holidays and travels, (iii) sport, and (iv) other leisure activities. As depicted in Figure 4b, before the pandemic period, “diverse leisure activities” and “culture” are the predominant categories with about 200 publications each per month. We observed a peak in the number of publications related to sport in January 2020 due to the Youth Olympic Games that took place in Lausanne. A closer look at the first semester of 2020 revealed that the number of articles concerning “sports”, “holidays and travels”, and “diverse leisure activities” in association with coronavirus decreased as of March 2020. On the other hand, the coverage of cultural issues remained associated with COVID-19 all through the pandemic period, probably because of the high impact of the lockdown on this economic sector.

3.5. Media Coverage of Political Aspects

Politics is one the two topics whose coverage significantly increased in the French-speaking Swiss media during the first semester of 2020 (Figure 2b).

Our detailed analysis of the publications related to this topic (Figure 5a) showed that, in the pre-pandemic period, the same level of attention was given in the media to (i) health care policy, (ii) the Swiss federal council, and (iii) international politics, while crisis management (iv) was a very minor subject. During this period, two peaks in the number of publications related to health care policy can be observed. The first one, in October 2018, is related to a measles outbreak at the University of Lausanne; the second one, in February 2019, corresponds to the opening in Lausanne of a University Center of General Medicine and Public Health (Unisanté).

During the first pandemic wave, the media coverage of topics related to health care policy and the Swiss federal council roughly tripled as compared to the pre-pandemic period, while publications associated with crisis management increased 12-fold. At the onset of the outbreak, in March 2020, we recorded a peak of 140 publications about health care policy, 93 publications mentioning Swiss federal council, and 14 publications on crisis management. During the preceding months, the mean number of publications per month about these topics was 30, 28, and 0.9 respectively. This increased attention of media was directly linked to the soft lockdown enforced by the Swiss government on the advice of the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and the need to inform the population about the sanitary situation. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic not only boosted the coverage of national political subjects, but also shed light on aspects, such as crisis management, that were previously rarely addressed in media. Finally, it is worth noting that the media coverage of international politics decreased by about 25% during the first COVID-19 wave. Indeed, the outbreak led to the cancellation of all international events and had important repercussions on international relationships with the temporary closure of borders, for example.

3.6. Media Coverage of Medical Aspects

As medical microbiologists, we were particularly interested in studying the media coverage of medical topics related to microbes and to infectious diseases during the pandemic period. Similarly to political subjects, medical topics were significantly more treated in the French-speaking Swiss media during the first semester 2020 (Figure 2b). As depicted in Figure 5b, we focused on four medical aspects of the COVID-19 outbreak: (i) protective measures, (ii) disease symptoms, (iii) diagnostic methods, and (iv) treatments, and we analyzed their coverage in media before and during the first wave. Some COVID-19 symptoms, such as headache or fever, were frequently mentioned in media already during the pre-pandemic period, since they are current manifestations of various infections. The mean number of publications containing these words per month increased by 1.5–2 times during the first COVID-19 wave and especially at the onset of the outbreak (Figure 5b). Roughly the same observation can be made about diagnostic methods of infectious diseases, which were quite often dealt with in the media before the pandemic and which became up to three times more covered in March and May 2020. Early treatments empirically used during the first wave to fight SARS-CoV-2 infections were either antiviral drugs previously developed for other viral infections (such as HIV and Ebola) or immuno-modulators routinely used to decrease inflammatory responses, for example, in auto-immune diseases. These medicines are highly specific and were very rarely mentioned in the mass media before the pandemic. As expected, they became an important topic between March and May 2020 (Figure 5b).

Noteworthy is that the most striking increase in the number of publications was observed in those dealing with prevention and protective measures, in relation to coronavirus, whose number peaked at 164 in April 2020. On the other hand, the number of publications on this topic not mentioning coronavirus remained constant as compared to the pre-pandemic period (around 35 publications per month). Our results indicated three peaks in the number of publications regarding prevention, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Two peaks at 70 publications corresponded, respectively, to the measles outbreak at Lausanne University (October 2018) and to the opening in Lausanne of Unisanté, a center largely devoted to prevention (February 2019). The third, slightly lower peak (58 publications) observed in January 2020 corresponds to the Youth Olympic Games that generated several publications on sports injury prevention.

The last part of our study aimed at obtaining a more accurate vision of the media treatment of medical topics during a pandemic period. For this purpose, we analyzed in detail the four above-mentioned subjects and a fifth one, the negative social consequences of the pandemic, during the first semester of 2020, a period that encompass the first pandemic wave (March to May 2020).

3.6.1. Protective Measures Against SARS-CoV-2 Infections

Prevention concepts are rarely discussed in the media outside a pandemic period, this topic being generally considered of low interest by the editors and journalists working for traditional media and considered not appealing enough for lay persons. Thus, as expected, prevention concepts were rare in the media during the pre-pandemic period and were much more frequent in the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic period, as shown by the quantitative analysis conducted on the occurrence of words such as “masks”, “protective equipment”, “lockdown”, and “social distancing” (Figure 5b and Figure 6a). There is one notable exception to this observation, for the term “vaccine”, because of its prime importance for many infectious diseases. Since vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 was not yet on the agenda during the first semester of 2020, the number of publications mentioning vaccines did not significantly vary during this period (Figure 6a).

During the pandemic, “masks” and “lockdown” were the two most present items in the media. It was noteworthy that the term “lockdown” was never used before the COVID-19 outbreak (Figure 6b). It became predominant during the lockdown period and decreased after re-opening. Similarly, we quantitively observed that the words “protective equipment” and “social distancing” were nearly totally absent from the traditional media before the pandemics (showing the high specificity of these words) and then largely increased during the lockdown and reached their maximum at the time of re-opening when these simple preventive measures were of prime importance.

3.6.2. COVID-19 Clinical Presentations

During the pandemic period, we observed a strong increase in the number of publications mentioning common and widespread COVID-19 symptoms (fever, flu) as well as specific clinical syndromes (pneumonia, ageusia/anosmia, Kawasaki, Guillain–Barré) (Supplementary Figure S1a).

A more detailed analysis of the first semester of 2020 (Supplementary Figure S1b) revealed that the words “fever” and “flu” became largely predominant between March and May. At that time, these two symptoms, though largely unspecific, were the main hallmarks of the disease. Specific pathologies associated with SARS-CoV-2 infections, such as “ageusia/anosmia, “thromboembolic events”, or “meningoencephalitis”, although well known by hospital clinicians, were rarely mentioned in the mass media. This observation illustrates the existing gap between the medical community and the general population. Noteworthy was how asymptomatic persons were a major cause for concern at the beginning and at the end of the lockdown period, most probably because of the transmission risk.

3.6.3. Tests to Diagnose SARS-CoV-2 Infections

The number of publications mentioning PCR tests or serology drastically increased during the first semester 2020, as compared to the preceding periods (Supplementary Figure S2a).

A deeper analysis of the first semester 2020 (Supplementary Figure S2b) revealed that the number of publications mentioning “PCR/screening” as a diagnostic tool peaked in March 2020, while the number of those concerning serological tests reached a maximum in May 2020 (despite being still lower at that time than those mentioning PCR). The PCR diagnostic test was implemented in our laboratory on 14 February 2020, and the serological test was on 14 April 2020. These results thus showed that the mass media were highly reactive and covered the topic of diagnostic tests immediately when they became available.

The number of publications mentioning “mutations” or “typing” was constant during the first semester of 2020, variants of SARS-CoV-2 having not appeared yet. Indeed, these two words were relatively common in the media all through the pandemic period and before (Supplementary Figure S2a), genome mutations playing an important role in cancer and in several other conditions, such as autism. Finally, it is worth noting that the phrase “neutralizing antibodies” was nearly absent in the media during all the studied periods. This concept, together with that of protection through vaccination, only emerged in the mass media in autumn 2020.

3.6.4. COVID-19 Treatments

The media coverage, during the first semester of 2020, of the diverse drugs used to fight SARS-CoV-2 infections was also analyzed in detail (Supplementary Figure S3a,b).

Chloroquine was the most cited drug (65 publications between March and May 2020) even though its effectiveness against coronavirus was not confirmed. Indeed, the large bunch of publications mentioning chloroquine (or hydroxychloroquine) is most probably due to the controversy among scientists about the real efficiency of this drug, widely used in developing countries to fight malaria, and of its derivative, hydroxychloroquine, an immuno-modulator used to treat various autoimmune diseases. Kaletra and Remdesivir, two anti-viral treatments initially developed against HIV and Ebola virus, were also frequently mentioned in media, especially in April 2020, when they were considered as promising treatments against COVID-19 by part of the medical community. These three drugs were almost completely absent from the media before the pandemic (Supplementary Figure S3a). Dexamethasone, a multipurpose anti-inflammatory drug, already had a few mentions in the media before the pandemic (Supplementary Figure S3a). The slight increase in the number of publications mentioning this drug observed during the first semester of 2020 was only due to articles published in June 2020, after the first wave, when this treatment was identified as efficient against SARS-CoV-2 (Supplementary Figure S3b). Interestingly, the most popular treatment against COVID-19 covered in the mass media is one of the less effective ones at curing patients and, conversely, the most effective drug is the least treated in the media. This observation again highlights the gap between scientific knowledge and media-conveyed information.

3.6.5. COVID-19 Negative Social Consequences

In addition to its medical consequences, the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic also had important negative social repercussions on the general population, in particular due to the 2 months lockdown. This period was associated with a marked reduction in social interactions, (recommendation to stay at home) with a loss of income, especially for economically vulnerable populations, and with feelings of fear of a new virus, yet unknown and deadly.

We evaluated the importance given during this period by French-speaking Swiss media to the COVID-19 negative social consequences. We observed a significant increase in the use of words such as loneliness or poverty (Supplementary Figure S4a). On the other hand, words related to death were not significantly more mentioned in media during the first semester 2020 than before. The same is true for words related to divorce and domestic violence as well as to breakdown, although they were a major cause for concern during the lockdown period.

A more detailed analysis of these topics for the first semester of 2020 (Supplementary Figure S4b) indicated that the number of publications about death drastically increased as of March 2020. The number of those mentioning loneliness or breakdown remained stable all through the first pandemic wave, while publications talking about poverty continuously increased and peaked in May, at the time of re-opening, when the negative consequences of the lockdown started to be evaluated. Domestic violence and divorces were of concern in March 2020, at the beginning of the lockdown period, but media attention for this topic then continuously decreased.

3.7. SARS-CoV-2 in Media During the Subsequent Waves of Infection in Switzerland

The number of coronavirus-related publications remained relatively high from March 2020 to July 2022 a period during which 6 COVID-19 waves were recorded in Switzerland (Figure 7),. It is worth noting that the first media wave (1, with 346 articles) corresponded to the first epidemic wave (peak I on 23 March 2020). The second media wave (2, with 263 articles) occurred a few weeks before the second epidemic wave (peak II on 2 November 2020). The third media wave (3, with 297 articles) occurred a few weeks after the fourth epidemic wave (peak IV on 31 August 2021). The fourth media wave (4, with 430 articles) occurred at the time of the major fifth epidemic wave (peak V on 24 January 2022). The epidemic waves III and VI have not been associated with an increase in the number of coronavirus-related articles, likely due to the limited medical impact of these two waves, which led to far fewer infections than waves II and V.

4. Discussion

In this study, we analyzed the impact of the pandemic situation on the treatment by traditional mass media of several societal topics, including microbiology and infectious diseases-related topics. We observed three main points: first, unsurprisingly, coronavirus became a very hot topic during the pandemic; however, we noticed that the media kept providing information about other microbes in the same proportion as before. Second, Swiss media provided a swift coverage of all medical aspects of the pandemic, even referring to complex subjects such as RT-PCR or neutralizing antibodies. However, the present work does not address the question of the population’s ability to face highly technical wording, such as “effective reproduction number”, “prevalence”, “incidence”, “cycle threshold value”, or the “sensitivity” and “specificity” of diagnostic tests.

Third, SARS-CoV-2 contaminated each and every topic treated in the media during the first wave period, not only medical ones but also those related to social matters, leisure, politics, economy, and ecology. More than half of the articles published during this period mentioned coronavirus and for some topics such as politics or medicine, whose media coverage was clearly boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic, this proportion went up to 82%. Such a ubiquitous presence of SARS-CoV-2 in media was prone to generate feelings of stress and anxiety in the population, especially given the lack of knowledge about the virus itself during the first months of the COVID pandemic and given the very high mortality observed in China and in Italy before March 2020, when the first wave of infections started in western Switzerland. In addition, we observed a change in journalistic practices, with a sudden interest for topics usually rarely treated in media such as infectious disease prevention, health care policy, and loneliness and poverty.

The number of publications about medical aspects related to infectious diseases almost doubled during the first semester of 2020, with a particularly striking increase in publications on the topic “prevention”. Our detailed analysis of this subject revealed the appearance in the mass media of new words such as “lockdown” or “social distancing”, which were specifically created during this outbreak and were not used earlier. Specific anti-COVID-19 treatments also became widely discussed in the media, especially hydroxychloroquine. Although not largely used to treat COVID-19 patients in Switzerland, this molecule was highly present in the media, an example that highlights the gap between scientific knowledge and its communication to the general population [14,15]. The high media coverage of hydroxychloroquine was due, at the onset of the outbreak, to the potential therapeutic effect of this drug and later to experts’ discordant opinions about its use in COVID-19 patients. Indeed, fake results about hydroxychloroquine efficiency were published in the prestigious medical journal “The Lancet” in an article that was later retracted [16]. At the same time, Oodendijk et al. demonstrated that the lack of robust peer-review processes can drastically decrease the quality of a published study, particularly during such a sanitary crisis, when rapid results and conclusions are demanded [17]. Altogether, the controversy about hydroxychloroquine efficiency, largely relayed in the media, could have decreased population trust in infectious diseases specialists, but rather changed the perception of the population towards medical research, its importance, its challenges, and its limits [18,19]. Ultimately, thanks to the high media coverage of all medical aspects related to SARS-CoV-2 infections, the general population became more aware of the time required to acquire knowledge on a new disease and of challenges faced by scientists during such a pandemic. It resulted in a higher consideration for microbiologists and researchers [20].

The main bias of this study is due to the choice of keywords used to define a topic. This choice, which determines the broadness of a given subject, influences the absolute number of publications on this topic. However, it does not impair the analysis of a precise topic over time.

Another limitation of our work is its focus on traditional media. Currently, the traditional influence of print media on public opinion is challenged by the growing importance of social media. On social networks, anyone can share news or ideas, often lacking a scientific basis, and reach a larger audience than a microbiologist appearing in traditional media. Thus, the challenge ahead for scientists is not only to be credible but also to be heard above the background noise produced in social media by non-expert persons. The huge striking force of social media became obvious at several occasions during the pandemic and fake news circulating on several aspects of the outbreak ultimately had at least a detrimental impact on the population confidence’s in their sanitary and political authorities, if not disastrous consequences for individuals and communities [18,19,21,22].

A very nice Swiss study showed that social media enabled a rapid propagation of fake news by retweeting and disseminating unverified information, especially during the first phase of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic [23]. The respective impact of social media and traditional media is likely different from country to country. Thus, in the USA, persons mainly relying on traditional media better perceived the true risk of infection due to SARS-CoV-2 than persons mainly using the social media as an information source. In this subpopulation largely dependent on social media, the perception of infection risk during the first period of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was clearly higher among Republicans [24]. Moreover, misinformation due to fake news was common in the USA, especially on social media [25].

On the other hand, in times of crisis, social media also offers great opportunities to rapidly relay as-yet unverified pieces of information (i.e., rumors) that later turn out to be important hallmarks of SARS-CoV-2 infection [7,8,9]. Social media have a remarkable power to influence public opinion. They are essential vectors to convey messages to the general population and should be integrated in every future strategy of scientific communication, particularly in respect of the difficulties faced with vaccination.

Finally, the very high level of media “contamination” by SARS-CoV-2 observed during the first wave of the pandemic were partially due to a novelty effect. The same analysis performed during the 5 following waves showed a lower impact on the journalistic coverage of societal topics and a focus on health-related topics.

One of the limitations of the present report is that we focused mainly on the coronavirus-related articles published in the 1st semester of 2020. The articles related to the coronavirus had a much broader scope during this period, addressing societal and political questions as well as investigating the impact of the pandemic on leisure and health systems, whereas during the epidemic wave V, the articles predominantly addressed health-related issues This larger diversity was expected since this first period, studied in detail in the present work, encompasses the first epidemic wave (peak I) and the short lockdown in place in Switzerland (only for about 6 weeks in March/April 2020). The novelty of this SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and the high mortality associated with the wild-type virus circulating at that period also explains the fear of death conveyed by the media, which totally disappeared with the much less virulent Omicron variant that caused the very high peak V (see Figure 7).

Future directions of research should include qualitative analysis by interviews of media managers, journalists, medical doctors, nurses, and lay persons.

5. Conclusions

This retrospective study showed to what extent the first pandemic wave shifted the media attention, and consequently also the public attention, towards SARS-CoV-2, to the detriment of other important medical topics such as, for example, prevention against cancer, tick-borne diseases, or addictions. Future studies about the long-term media coverage of COVID-19-related topics will allow for the evaluation of the adaptation of the general population to this major sanitary crisis.