The Second Worldwide Wave of Interest in Coronavirus since the COVID-19 Outbreaks in South Korea, Italy and Iran: A Google Trends Study

Abstract:

The recent emergence of a new coronavirus, COVID-19, has gained extensive coverage in public media and global news. As of 24 March 2020, the virus has caused viral pneumonia in tens of thousands of people in Wuhan, China, and thousands of cases in 184 other countries and territories. This study explores the potential use of Google Trends (GT) to monitor worldwide interest in this COVID-19 epidemic. GT was chosen as a source of reverse engineering data, given the interest in the topic. Current data on COVID-19 is retrieved from (GT) using one main search topic: Coronavirus. Geographical settings for GT are worldwide, China, South Korea, Italy and Iran. The reported period is 15 January 2020 to 24 March 2020. The results show that the highest worldwide peak in the first wave of demand for information was on 31 January 2020. After the first peak, the number of new cases reported daily rose for 6 days. A second wave started on 21 February 2020 after the outbreaks were reported in Italy, with the highest peak on 16 March 2020. The second wave is six times as big as the first wave. The number of new cases reported daily is rising day by day. This short communication gives a brief introduction to how the demand for information on coronavirus epidemic is reported through GT.

Full text:

PDF

How to cite:

Strzelecki, A. (2020). The Second Worldwide Wave of Interest in Coronavirus since the COVID-19 Outbreaks in South Korea, Italy and Iran: A Google Trends Study. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 88, 950-951. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.042

References:

1. Chen Y., Liu Q., Guo D. Emerging coronaviruses: genome structure, replication, and pathogenesis. J. Med. Virol. 2020;92:418-423. doi: 10.1002/jmv.25681.
2. Dong, E., Du, H., Gardner, L., 2020. An interactive web-based dashboard to track COVID-19 in real time. Lancet Infect. Dis. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30120-1.
3. Kamiński M., Łoniewski I., Marlicz W. Global internet data on the interest in antibiotics and probiotics generated by Google Trends. Antibiotics. 2019;8:147. doi: 10.3390/antibiotics8030147.
4. Mavragani A., Ochoa G. Google trends in infodemiology and infoveillance: methodology framework. J. Med. Internet Res. 2019;21 doi: 10.2196/13439.
5. World Health Organization, 2020a. Naming the coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) and the virus that causes it [WWW Document]. URL https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it (accessed 4.13.20).
6. World Health Organization, 2020b. Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) situation reports [WWW Document]. URL https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports (accessed 4.13.20).
7. World Health Organization, 2020c. Joint WHO and ECDC mission in Italy to support COVID-19 control and prevention efforts [WWW Document]. URL http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-emergencies/coronavirus-covid-19/news/news/2020/2/joint-who-and-ecdc-mission-in-italy-to-support-covid-19-control-and-prevention-efforts (accessed 4.13.20).