Study highlights the dynamic role of social media in epidemics Researchers from York University and the University of British Columbia have found social media use to be one of the factors related to the spread of COVID-19 within dozens of countries during the early stages of the pandemic. The researchers say this finding resembles other examples of social media misinformation ranging from the initial phase of vaccine rollout to the 2021 Capitol riot in the United States. Countries with high social media use leading to off-line political action prior to the pandemic, as surveyed before the pandemic by V-Dem (a database from the University of Gothenburg), showed the strongest trend toward a high R0 - an indicator of how many secondary infections one infected individual is likely to cause - and a faster initial spread of the virus.