  During the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple aspects of human life were subjected
to unprecedented changes, globally. In Sri Lanka, a developing country located
in South Asia, it was possible to observe a range of events that arose due to
the influence of the COVID-19 virus outbreak. Thus, the people of Sri Lanka
used Social Media to voice their opinions regarding such events and those
involved in them, enabling the ideal avenue to explore the social perception.
However, the outcome of such actions was at certain times detrimental. This
study was conducted as an attempt to identify the reasons for such instances as
well as to identify the behaviours of the Sri Lankan populace during such a
crisis event. To support this study, observations, as well as data of related
posts from a sample of 50 sources, were manually collected from the most
popular social media platform in Sri Lanka, Facebook. The posts considered
spanned until approximately a month after the initial major virus outbreak in
the country and contained content that even vaguely related to the virus.
Utilising such data, various forms of analyses such as topic significance and
topic co-occurrences were conducted. The findings highlight, while there can be
social detrimental ideas shared, the majority of the posts point constructive
and positive thoughts suggesting the successful influence from the cultural and
social values Sri Lanka society promotes throughout.
