@Article{info:doi/10.2196/54650,
author="Al-Mansoori, Alghalia
and Al Hayk, Ola
and Qassmi, Sharifa
and Aziz, Sarah M
and Haouari, Fatima
and Chivese, Tawanda
and Tamimi, Faleh
and Daud, Alaa",
title="Infoveillance of COVID-19 Infections in Dentistry Using Platform X: Descriptive Study",
journal="J Med Internet Res",
year="2025",
month="Apr",
day="3",
volume="27",
pages="e54650",
keywords="COVID-19; dentistry; infection; patient; infoveillance; platform X; Twitter",
abstract="Background: The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of dental professionals and patients has been difficult to track and quantify. X (formerly known as Twitter) proved to be a useful infoveillance tool for tracing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. Objective: This study aims to investigate the use of X to track COVID-19 infections and deaths associated with dental practices. Methods: English Tweets reporting infections or deaths associated with the dental practice were collected from January 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021. Tweets were searched manually using the X Pro search engine (previously known as TweetDeck [X Corp], Twitter Inc, and TweetDeck Ltd) and automatically using a tweet crawler on the X Academic Research application programming interface. Queries included keywords on infection or death of dental staff and patients caused by COVID-19. Tweets registering events on infection or death of dentists, dental staff, and patients as part of their conversation were included. Results: A total of 5641 eligible tweets were retrieved. Of which 1583 (28.1{\%}) were deemed relevant after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of the relevant tweets, 311 (19.6{\%}) described infections at dental practices, where 1168 (86.9{\%}) infection cases were reported among dentists, 134 (9.9{\%}) dental staff, and 41 (3.1{\%}) patients. The majority of reported infections occurred in the United States, India, and Canada, affecting individuals aged 20-51 years. Among the 600 documented deaths, 253 (42.2{\%}) were dentists, 22 (3.7{\%}) were dental staff, and 7 (1.2{\%}) were patients. The countries with the highest number of deaths were the United States, Pakistan, and India, with an affected age range of 23-83 years. Conclusions: The data suggest that analyses of X information in populations of affected areas may provide useful information regarding the impact of a pandemic on the dental profession and demonstrate a correlation with suspected and confirmed infection or death cases. Platform X shows potential as an early predictor for disease spread. However, further research is required to confirm its validity. ",
issn="1438-8871",
doi="10.2196/54650",
url="https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e54650",
url="https://doi.org/10.2196/54650"
}