This post is part of the series Coronavirus.

Since the beginning of March, the number of manifestations on Chile’s social networks about the coronavirus increased more significantly than the ones regarding the national plebiscite. Words and expressions such as "perfect excuse", "mass protests" and "postponement" were identified as relevant among the texts that dealt with the two themes.

When observing the relation between the coronavirus and the approval and rejection movements regarding the new constitution, a very relevant insight was noticed: the “#yorechazo” (“#Ireject”) movement has a negative correlation with “coronavirus”, in other words, the number of manifestations that mention coronavirus increased during that term, while manifestations on the “#yorechazo” movement decreased in heavily correlated proportions.

On the other hand, the approval movement, represented by manifestations with the “#yoapruebo” (“#Iapprove”) hashtag, experimented an increase throughout the month, but it returned to the same daily amount from the start of the period, and didn’t represent any significative correlation with manifestations on COVID-19.

The chilean national plebiscite will vote for the approval or rejection of a new constitution for the country and is scheduled for next April 26th. However, with the State of Emergency by COVID-19 declared in the country for 90 days, the uncertainty about its implementation grows.

According to Daoura Insights, the “coronavirus” topic is on high alert for a future increase in social manifestations. Now, for the “plebiscite” subject, if it remains with the same behavior of the last 18 days, there is a possible tendency that manifestations about the subject may decrease during the next weeks.

Read other posts from the series Coronavirus.