COVID-19 dominates headlines; migrant labour crisis most-trending news: Study

Dharma Media Consultants' Founder Shutapa Paul said the study was carried out with an aim to find who and what were the newsmakers before and during lockdown induced by the deadly coronavirus.

PTI

May 19, 2020 / 16:56 IST

Representative image

26 Aug, 2025 12:21

Volume

Todays L/H

As a nationwide lockdown continues to fight the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19 has accounted for up to 42.2 percent of mainstream news headlines during this period while a resultant migrant labour crisis has emerged as the most-trending news, a new study showed on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as the biggest newsmaker among all Indian political leaders, showed the study that used artificial intelligence to analyse 75,000 headlines across 15 mainstream news sources between March 1 and May 10.

Modi is followed by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Congress leader P Chidambaram in the top-five newsmakers among national leaders, as per the study done by boutique brand-building firm Dharma Media Consultants, in partnership with technology company PRM Fincon, on how COVID-19 has primarily occupied news space.

Coronavirus India LIVE News Updates

Among state-level politicians, Jyotiraditya Scindia was most in the news with his shift from Congress to BJP. He was followed by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The study found that out of the total 75,000 headlines, 24.5 percent of headlines were related to COVID-19 pre-lockdown (from March 1), but it rose to 42.2 percent during the first two phases of the lockdown and then dropped to 32 percent in the first week of the third phase (till May 10).

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

Show