Spread of awareness of COVID-19 between December 2019 and March 2020 in France

During the early phase of outbreaks, awareness of the presence of the disease plays an important role in transmission dynamics. To investigate the processes of how people become aware of a disease, we conducted two complementary investigations. First, we surveyed 868 academic researchers in France, on the time and circumstances when they became aware of COVID-19 as an important event. We found that 25% did so before February 18th (first death in France), 50% did so before March 10th (first presidential allocution) and 75% did so before March 16th (announcement of the lockdown). Awareness came from nine categories of circumstances: (1) decisions taken by the government (elicited by 35.7% participants); (2) information from media or social media (24.7%); (3) conversation with friends (22.4%); (4) observed changes in their personal lives (14.0%); (5) decisions taken by the employer (9.2%); (6) observed changes at work (9.9%); (7) suspected case of COVID-19 in their entourage (3.1%); (8) fear for oneself or their entourage (2.8%) and (9) self-appraisal of scientific reports (2.8%). Second, we appraised three general media in France (a television news show, a radio news show, and a newspaper) and showed that COVID-19 became a preeminent topic only after March 1st 2020 when the epidemic is present on national soil. Our results show that multiple intricated factors prompt the awareness of an emerging infectious disease. Awareness is not solely driven by general media as they begin to focus on the topic late.