Presentation of preventive measures in Sinhala television news telecasts during the second wave of Covid-19 in Sri Lanka; an observational infoveillance study

Introduction: The promotion of preventive measures is regarded as the most effective public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic. A significant proportion of Sri Lankans rely on television to access news. This Infoveillance study was done to assess the content related to preventive measures for Covid-19, included in Sinhalese television news telecasts.
Methods: An observational infoveillance study was conducted by performing both quantitative and content analyses of Covid-19 related content included in Sinhala prime time news-bulletins in four of the mostly viewed television channels within a period of two weeks.
Results: Movement restriction as a preventive measure was illustrated with brief descriptions in 25.0% of the news bulletins. However, highlighting the importance of wearing face masks (7.1%), social distancing (8.9%), hand washing (8.9%) and avoiding gatherings and crowded places (16.1%) were low. A variation of reporting was noted among the four different channels. The content analysis has revealed a lack of objective descriptions of contact tracing and graphical illustrations of epidemiology.
Conclusions: News bulletins generally fail to provide the public with complete and adequate information about preventive measures. A discrepancy was noted in the volumes of reporting of different preventive strategies and a variation of reporting was noted among the four different channels.