Topic · social
Winter Illness Demand Surge
4 posts
· 1,011 engagement
· first seen 29 Jul 2026
· last seen 6 Sep 2026
The annual winter surge in respiratory and other seasonal illnesses — driven in part by RSV — that strains New Zealand hospital emergency departments, ambulance services, and primary care with record patient volumes and capacity pressures.
Stance breakdown
How the per-edge framings classify across 4 classified edges. Each framing is labelled by a small AI stance classifier; see the methodology page for details.
Critical
3
Neutral / explainer
1
Sentiment breakdown
Whole-post emotional valence across 4 classified posts that reference this topic. Distinct from stance: a post can be supportive of the topic and still negative in tone (an angry supporter) — the two together capture the texture short-form posts compress into very few words.
Platform mix
Where the conversation is happening. Engagement is volume-weighted (likes + 2×shares + 3×replies); a small number of high-impact posts can outrank a high-volume but low-engagement platform.
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facebook
3 posts
· 719 engagement
719
-
reddit
1 post
· 292 engagement
292
Top posts by engagement
The most-engaged posts referencing this topic. Engagement is likes + 2×shares + 3×replies; the order matches the digest ranking on /social.
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facebook
· 1newsnz
· sentiment: negative
· ♥ 94
· ↻ 11
· 💬 99
· 413 engagement
6 Sep
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reddit
· u/snatchview
· sentiment: negative
· ♥ 76
· ↻ 0
· 💬 72
· 292 engagement
29 Jul
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facebook
· 1newsnz
· sentiment: negative
· ♥ 68
· ↻ 5
· 💬 50
· 228 engagement
24 Aug
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facebook
· 1newsnz
· sentiment: neutral
· ♥ 22
· ↻ 4
· 💬 16
· 78 engagement
9 Aug