Infodemiological Study Using Google Trends on Coronavirus Epidemic in Wuhan, China

TL;DR

This study analyzes Google Trends data to understand public information demand during the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, revealing differences in search behavior between China and the global context from December 2020 to March 2020.

Contribution

It introduces a comparative infodemiological analysis of COVID-19 related searches in China and worldwide using Google Trends data.

Findings

In China, SARS was initially more searched than coronavirus.

Globally, coronavirus was the most searched term from the start.

Search patterns reflect public awareness and concern over time.

Abstract

The recent emergence of a new coronavirus (COVID-19) has gained a high cover in public media and worldwide news. The virus has caused a viral pneumonia in tens of thousands of people in Wuhan, a central city of China. This short paper gives a brief introduction on how the demand for information on this new epidemic is reported through Google Trends. The reported period is 31 December 2020 to 20 March 2020. The authors draw conclusions on current infodemiological data on COVID-19 using three main search keywords: coronavirus, SARS and MERS. Two approaches are set. First is the worldwide perspective, second - the Chinese one, which reveals that in China this disease in the first days was more often referred to SARS then to general coronaviruses, whereas worldwide, since the beginning, it is more often referred to coronaviruses.