Google trends helps us to know and explore what the world is looking for and gives us insight into the behavior of Internet users on a particular topic.
Since 2020 the majority of the global search that has been widely about what coronavirus, what are the symptoms, what the medicine and where the vaccine is available.
Millions and billions of searches happen on the internet for information about COVID-19.
But does this determine our understanding of infection? Or it could help us find directions to the pandemic COVID forward?
With locks and restrictions in movement, humans have made use of mobile phones more than ever.
From the purchase of medicines, to provide first aid treatment for ordering the ambulance, everything is done online when national lockdown enforced in this country.
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Due to the immediate shutdown has been limited to zero access to doctors and specialists.
In order to survive through a pandemic is inevitable to know about the new virus.
To get more information about the new coronavirus, people rely on the internet.
Simple and basic questions like symptoms, how to tell if someone is positive COVID, what to do if someone is positive COVID searched on the internet.
Trends in COVID-19 visible in Google.
“As interest in coronavirus increases, people want to know how to prepare and protect themselves,” Google said in a report Coronavirus region-wise.
In 2020, Coronavirus is the second highest searched topic in India after IPL.
Another search on how to improve immunity, how to make the cleaning at home and close my COVID test.
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By the time 2021 arrives, the Indian government has begun a mission to the vaccine.
This year, the top searches are COWIN, the Indian government appointed portal for all COVID-19 vaccine-related information.
In addition to this, a search on vaccines and vaccine registration is more than a search symptoms.
Variations in the search topic to talk about a pandemic, but how reliable is to determine the strength of a pandemic? Or in simple words can Google be used as an epidemiological tool?
Google Trends uses a small portion of the search for a keyword, and then analyze the results according to specific geographic locations and time period specified.
A relative search volume (RSV) is then assigned to the keyword, standardization of 0 to 100, where 100 is the highest share terms through a series of time.
A value of 100 represents the pinnacle of popularity for the term.
The value of 50 means that the term is half as popular.
Score 0 means that there is not enough data for this term.
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A study conducted in the scientific journal Nature in July 2021 did not agree on the validity of using Google Trends data as an epidemiological tool.
But they said that when studying the relationship between trends and real-world data such as COVID-19 case, “the resulting correlations can be more reliable.”
Why Google Trends can not be used to determine the strength of a pandemic, Jagpreet Chhatwal, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Institute of the Massachusetts General Hospital for Technology Assessment said it was not always that Google Trends will be to exactly follow what happens to the epidemiology of the truth.
In a report conducted by the Boston Globe, Chhatwal explains that for example, if a new COVID-19 symptoms, the search may surge to the symptoms.
Once symptoms become familiar among the population, a Google search will go down even as the case may be on the rise.
A study shows infodemiology infoveillance and scholars to adopt a more robust criteria for collecting data from Google Trends.
“To ensure the reliability of the full dataset Google Trends, it is important for future research that the authors collected data query for several consecutive days and work with their volumes relative search (RSV) on average not RSVs daily, try to minimize standard errors to threshold established beliefs respected, “said another.
