Essay Example on Navigating Sentiments: Qatar's COVID-19 Lockdown Impact Analysis

Introduction

Since December 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic has infected more than twenty million people and led to more than 700, 000 deaths in less than ten months (World Health Organization, 2020). The World Health Organization (WHO) announced it as a global pandemic in March 2020 after it spread from Asia to Europe and North America (Lauer et al., 2020). Because of that, governments all across the world have had to take drastic measures that include suspending almost all economic activities and imposing strict lockdowns to limit the spread of the disease. Qatar is one government that imposed strict lockdown measures on its population while banning all international travel. People have been confined to their homes, with residents only allowed to go out for essential needs such as health and food. The move has had some economic, psychological, and social impacts on Qatar residents so much so that the government has had to launch a mental support service (Henzen, 2020). This research project seeks to indicate people’s perception of their government’s actions in containing the disease. Emotional sentiment and stance analysis of people’s reaction to precautionary measures taken by the Qatari government to prevent COVID-19 will reveal their psychological and social impacts on Qataris.

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Problem Statement

People’s approval of the measures is necessary for the success of the measures. However, most of the discussion still focuses on the economic consequences of the lockdown measures and neglects the people’s perception of the same. There is no doubt that the lockdown measures have hurt the Gulf economies, with Qatar’s economy expected to shrink by 4 percent in 2020 (Saba, 2020). These economic impacts only work to exacerbate an already bad situation. The loss of a source of income and livelihood is affecting people’s mental state, hence making it difficult for researchers to know whether the emotional and psychological turmoil is due to the measures taken by the government, the economic impact of the virus, or both. It becomes difficult to separate the stance and sentiments on the economic depression from that of the government measures to contain the virus.

In summary, there is a need to understand the people’s perception of the measures the government is taking, as a separate subject from the economic impacts of the virus or the measures themselves. The research needs to address the following questions:

1. What are the measures taken by the Qatari government to limit the spread of Covid-19?
2. How do people feel about the precautionary measures taken by the Qatari government?
3. How are people choosing to air their emotions, sentiments, and stance?

Objective

The long-term goal of the research is to develop a formal emotional, sentiment, and stance monitoring system. The monitoring system, in this case, is defined as the process of identifying and classifying the people’s reaction to the lockdown measures. However, the objective of the current study is to provide a thorough review of the literature and online posts concerning the Qatari government’s measures and outline a conceptual framework for categorizing people’s sentiments, and stances. In particular, the study has the following sub-objectives:

1. To provide an extensive review of available research and characteristics of responses found on online platforms.
2. To provide a reaction classification model for easier reaction identification and modeling.
3. Outlining a conceptual framework for total monitoring of people’s responses.

Preliminary Literature

A preliminary literature review shows that very little research has been done on the subject, primarily focusing on Qatari residents. Since this is an unfolding event, most of the research is still being conducted and yet to be published. Covid et al. (2020) were one of the earliest research published on the topic. Expectedly, the research dwelled on the epidemiology of the disease, with the focus being placed on severe patient outcomes. However, research on the subject has continued to evolve, with more researchers getting on board and expanding their field of research.

One study that has explored a topic related to the issue discussed in this topic is, Kazmi et al., (2020), who conducted a qualitative study on the impacts that the Covid-19 measures and restrictions have had on the mental health of the Indian population. That is one of the pioneering studies on the topic, and it found signs of depression, anxiety, and stress as common mental disorders among the participants of the research. However, while Kazmi et al., (2020) highlight the mental state of the population, it did not discuss the sentiment and stance of the people. That was done by a different study from the same country.

Barkur (2020), wanted to find out the sentiment of the Indian people on the government-imposed lockdown measures. The exploratory study, which used social media as its primary source of information, found mixed feelings about the government measures from the Indian people. There are a few other studies, such as Manguri (2020) and Dubey (2020), that can be used in the study of this topic.

Method

The study will rely on online surveys questionnaires and literature review as its primary research methods. By following hashtags such as #QatarLockdown, the study will be able to gather information on people’s emotional sentiments and stance on measures taken by the government. Twitter, in particular, has extensive usage in Qatar and will be the primary source of information on the subject (Oruc, 2019). According to Oruc (2019), Twitter is one of the few platforms where people demonstrate a feeling of community. The analysis will use the AntConc program, which analyzes electronic texts to find and reveal patterns in them.

References

Barkur, G., & Vibha, G. B. K. (2020). Sentiment analysis of nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 outbreak: Evidence from India. Asian Journal of Psychiatry.

Covid, C. D. C., & Team, R. (2020). Severe outcomes among patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)—United States, February 12–March 16, 2020. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep, 69(12), 343-346.

Dubey, A. D. (2020). Twitter Sentiment Analysis during COVID-19 Outbreak. Available at SSRN 3572023.

Henzen, B. (2020, June, 3). Qatar. https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2020/04/qatar-government-and-institution-measures-in-response-to-covid.html

Kazmi, S. S. H., Hasan, K., Talib, S., & Saxena, S. (2020). COVID-19 and Lockdwon: A Study on the Impact on Mental Health. Available at SSRN 3577515.

Lauer, S. A., Grantz, K. H., Bi, Q., Jones, F. K., Zheng, Q., Meredith, H. R., ... & Lessler, J. (2020). The incubation period of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from publicly reported confirmed cases: estimation and application. Annals of Internal Medicine, 172(9), 577-582.

Manguri, K. H., Ramadhan, R. N., & Amin, P. R. M. (2020). Twitter Sentiment Analysis on Worldwide COVID-19 Outbreaks. Kurdistan Journal of Applied Research, 54–65.

Oruc, N. (2019). Hashtag Unity: Qatar’s digital nationalism in the Gulf crisis. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 12(1), 43–64. https://doi-org.eres.qnl.qa/10.1386/jammr.12.1.43_1

Saba, Y. (2020, July 21). Gulf economies seen shrinking sharply in 2020, to pick up in 2021: Reuters Poll. Medium. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-economy-poll/gulf-economies-seen-shrinking-sharply-in-2020-to-pick-up-in-2021-reuters-poll-idUSKCN24M0EN

World Health of Organization (2020, August, 13). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019