When a patient was diagnosed with Ebola in the US, social media attention dramatically increased. But as concerns about a domestic outbreak have dwindled in the past few days, so too has social media’s interest in the disease.
Chart: As Ebola ravages West Africa, Twitter loses interest
The chart below, made by Vox’s Anand Katakam with Reverb, shows the fluctuation in the number of tweets mentioning Ebola in the past month. Interest is still much higher than it was in mid-September, but it’s trending downward.
The dropping interest doesn’t in any way indicate that Ebola is slowing down. Ebola has killed more people each month since May, and the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects that to continue for some time. But those cases and deaths will almost entirely occur in West Africa, not in the US.
To learn more about Ebola, read Vox’s card stack and 21 maps and charts that explain Ebola.
