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. 2020 Mar;25(10):2000199.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.10.2000199.

Retrospective analysis of the possibility of predicting the COVID-19 outbreak from Internet searches and social media data, China, 2020

Cuilian Li  1 , Li Jia Chen  2 , Xueyu Chen  1 , Mingzhi Zhang  1 , Chi Pui Pang  1   2 , Haoyu Chen  1
Affiliations

Retrospective analysis of the possibility of predicting the COVID-19 outbreak from Internet searches and social media data, China, 2020

Cuilian Li et al. Euro Surveill. 2020 Mar.

Abstract

The peak of Internet searches and social media data about the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak occurred 10-14 days earlier than the peak of daily incidences in China. Internet searches and social media data had high correlation with daily incidences, with the maximum r > 0.89 in all correlations. The lag correlations also showed a maximum correlation at 8-12 days for laboratory-confirmed cases and 6-8 days for suspected cases.

Keywords: Baidu Index; COVID-19; Google Trends; Internet surveillance; Weibo Index; coronavirus.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Searches for keywords ‘coronavirus’ and ‘pneumonia’, obtained via different indices, and number of daily new COVID-19 cases, China, January–February 2020
Figure 2
Figure 2
Lag correlations between new laboratory-confirmed cases and suspected cases of COVID-19 and data from Google Trends, Baidu Index and Weibo Index for the keywords ‘coronavirus’ and ‘pneumonia’, China, January–February 2020
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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