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. 2021 Apr 1;39(14):1877-1881.
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.03.019. Epub 2021 Mar 6.

Vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination in the time of COVID-19: A Google Trends analysis

Samuel Pullan  1 , Mrinalini Dey  2
Affiliations

Vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination in the time of COVID-19: A Google Trends analysis

Samuel Pullan et al. Vaccine. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced many calls for a vaccine. There is growing concern that vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination presence will dampen the uptake of a coronavirus vaccine. There are many cited reasons for vaccine hesitancy. Mercury content, autism association, and vaccine danger have been commonly found in anti-vaccination messages. It is also mused that the reduced disease burden from infectious diseases has paradoxically reduced the perceived requirement for vaccine uptake. Our analysis using Google Trends has shown that throughout the pandemic the search interest in a coronavirus vaccine has increased and remained high throughout. Peaks are found when public declarations are made, the case number increases significantly, or when vaccine breakthroughs are announced. Anti-vaccine searches, in the context of COVID-19, have had a continued and growing presence during the pandemic. Contrary to what some may believe, the burden of coronavirus has not been enough to dissuade anti-vaccine searches entirely.

Keywords: Anti-vaccination; Google trends; Vaccine hesitancy; Vaccine safety; Vaccine uptake.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Popularity of search terms related to a vaccine for COVID-19, plotted against cumulative worldwide cases (grey shaded), and key events in the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Timeline of search popularity for phrases relating to coronavirus vaccine and anti-vaccination terminology. From upper to lower: searches for “coronavirus” or “COVID” and “mercury”; “coronavirus” or “COVID” and “autism”; searches for “coronavirus vaccine” and “safe” or “dangerous”; cumulative worldwide cases of COVID-19.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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