How do people perceive novel coronavirus threat?

Observation:

World health organization (WHO) declared outbreak of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) as public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on 30^th Jan 2020. This led to a relative increase in Google search of the term “coronavirus” worldwide (Fig 1A). We further studied five countries, United States, Germany, Italy, India and South Korea for their Google search behaviour during the COVID19 pandemic. These five countries were selected based on their geographical locations in Asian, European and American continents and because of the significant variation in the infection and mortality rates recorded across these countries. Also, these countries utilized different strategies to combat COVID 19 pandemic.

Epidemic started in China took the form of pandemic and spread across the world including these five countries. While in each of these countries, number of coronavirus infected individual rose exponentially, interestingly, a corresponding increase in Google search of the term “coronavirus” did not occur (Diagram 1). In these five countries, “coronavirus” Google search exponentially increased only when the governments in each of these countries announced “lockdown” or equivalent. Lockdown was to result in a combination of following conditions (1) confinement of people within their homes (2) closure of schools and day care (3) ban on meetings of more than 50 people (4) closing of international or inter-state borders. In each of the five countries, the peak of “coronavirus” Google search lasted for few days after the announcement of lockdown. However, subsequently the “coronavirus” search dipped, even when numbers of coronavirus infected individuals rose during that period (Diagram 1). Thus behaviour of “coronavirus” Google search was unrelated to the number of coronavirus infected individuals.

Interestingly, on the day and during subsequent few days when lockdown was announced, while “coronavirus” Google search significantly increased, Google search for terms such as “grocery”, “transport”, “YouTube” and “lockdown” did not show corresponding rise (Diagram 2).

Conclusion:

Thus announcement of lockdown (or equivalent) and not exponential rise in numbers of coronavirus infected individual acted as a trigger for people to google search “coronavirus”. Thus during a pandemic, the day a GOVT announces lockdown or equivalent, may also be the ideal time to provide people with the best information and resources. Also, GOVTs can be transparent with the information on infection rates as it does not seem to trigger anxiety which is evident from “coronavirus” google search pattern.

Discussion:

Coronavirus posed a threat yet “unknown” to common people hence instead of fear, it elicited a response of “anxiety”. While fear is human response to specific, observable danger, anxiety is seen as diffused, unfocused, objectless, future-oriented fear which is elicited by an unknown danger. As part of the response to coronavirus induced anxiety, Google search of various terms related to the virus increased significantly worldwide, such as, “coronavirus symptoms”, “pandemic”, “coronavirus treatment”, “contagion”, “coronavirus infection” (Diagram 3).

Interestingly during Dec 30^th 2019 to Apr 4^th 2020, while “coronavirus” google search significantly increased worldwide, Google search for terms such as “grocery”, “transport”, “YouTube” and “lockdown” did not show corresponding rise (Diagram 2). It was surprising as we expected people to Google search more for “grocery”, “transport”, “YouTube” and “lockdown” during a lockdown. A country wise analysis confirmed the observation further. In Diagram 4, we analysed relative search for various words precisely on the day the lockdown or equivalent was announced in that country. For eg. 22^nd March in Germany or 9^th March in Italy. Even when restrictions on grocery, transport was being enforced, people Google searched more about “coronavirus”. In case of South Korea, “YouTube” seemed to be searched more than “coronavirus” on red alert day, however, when compared with yearly data, “YouTube” search did not show any significant rise on that day.

It seems that people did not perceive the rising numbers of coronavirus infected patients as threat. However, a GOVT announcement of a drastic measure such as lockdown or equivalent, made people aware of the magnitude of the threat and they tried to gather more information on coronavirus over internet. The day lockdown was announced in the five countries of interest, “coronavirus” Google search was significantly more than “grocery” and “transport”. This was puzzling as during a lockdown restricted availability of grocery and transport pose an immediate threat. This could be because coronavirus posed a novel threat compared to restricted grocery and transport.

Methodology:

1. Google Trends (https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US) was used to analyse Google searches of terms "coronavirus", “grocery”, “transport”, “YouTube” and “lockdown” in various countries listed here. Google search numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. A score of 0 means there was not enough data for this term.

2. Johns Hopkins coronavirus resource center (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html) was used to count confirmed coronavirus infected people on a given date, in countries studied here.