The spatial distribution of Weibo related to COVID-19 is shown in Figure 2. The Weibo numbers were mainly concentrated in the east-central parts of China, as shown in Figure 4a. There were more than 5,000 Weibo texts in Shandong Province (the capital of Jinan), Hubei Province (capital of Wuhan), Henan (capital of Zhengzhou), Guangdong (capital of Guangzhou), Sichuan (the capital of Chengdu), and Jiangsu (capital of Nanjing), Anhui Province (capital of Hefei), Hebei Province (capital of Shijiazhuang), Beijing, Shaanxi (capital of Xi’an), Liaoning (capital of Shenyang), Hunan (capital of Changsha), and Shanxi (capital of Taiyuan). Figure 4b shows the spatial distribution of the kernel density with a search radius of 100 km, indicating that the high-density areas of Weibo related to COVID-19 were in Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xi’an, and Zhengzhou, and presents a continuous trend among the hot points of Wuhan, Beijing, and Shanghai.
