The number of negative posts about Covid-19 is declining, especially in countries which rolled out extensive vaccination programmes, according to a study. Scientists from Vanderbilt University in the US and the Federal Technological University of Parana in Brazil focused on 120 million English-language posts between March 1, 2020 and June 2021. The findings published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology showed that users' perception of the Covid-19 pandemic became less negative as it progressed.

The team analysed dozens of negative words -- including 'anxiety', 'idiot', 'rage' and 'horrible' and counted the number of negative words. "We showed that the negative perception skyrocketed in April 2020 and decreased steadily since then," said Alexander Maier, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Vanderbilt. "As time progressed over the past year, we found that fewer and fewer negative emotional words were used in tweets mentioning the pandemic," he added.