| Id |
Subject |
Object |
Predicate |
Lexical cue |
| T31 |
0-191 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The government, as the main governing body, is the most critical (information) node in the entire network, since it can intervene in information by “blocking” [28,29] and “disclosing” [5,30]. |
| T32 |
192-434 |
Sentence |
denotes |
The minimal blocking implies a free and open information environment, which stimulates information to be widely diffused and induces more people to take self-protective measures [31], but “rumors” might also proliferate at the mean time [24]. |
| T33 |
435-570 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Even if (under certain premises) some “rumors” are accurate [7,32,33], it might still interrupt the prevention efforts to the epidemic. |
| T34 |
571-852 |
Sentence |
denotes |
It is always believed that government should perform as a central node to disclose accurate and up-to-date information to the entire society, so as to keep the public away from untruthful information and prompt the public to make informed decisions about health protection [30,34]. |
| T35 |
853-1072 |
Sentence |
denotes |
However, in the real world, governments do face time constraints and the trade-off between being accurate and being up-to-date in terms of information disclosing, which is not considered in classical information theory. |
| T36 |
1073-1381 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Because a highly infectious disease caused by unknown viruses with great externality, such as COVID-19, spreads together with information of varying qualities (truthfulness, accuracy, etc.), it is highly probable that the disease has already contaminated the society before low-quality information is purged. |
| T37 |
1382-1634 |
Sentence |
denotes |
In this case, the government has no way to disclose accurate information in time, resulting in the loss of public trust and raising the doubt of the public on the governing capacity of the government, which will accelerate epidemic outbreak [35,36,37]. |
| T38 |
1635-1856 |
Sentence |
denotes |
Therefore, governments need to not only decide when to inject information into the network, but also whether to follow the tenet that governments do not and should not block information spreading at any circumstance [38]. |
