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. 2022 Jan 19:13:6.
doi: 10.4103/ijpvm.IJPVM_367_20. eCollection 2022.

Evaluation of COVID-19 Trend in Iran; Population Response to the Recent Pandemic Overtime

Reza Jafarzadeh Esfehani  1   2 , Mohammad Shariati  3 , Ariane Sadr-Nabavi  2   4 , Hamid Reza Bidkhori  1
Affiliations

Evaluation of COVID-19 Trend in Iran; Population Response to the Recent Pandemic Overtime

Reza Jafarzadeh Esfehani et al. Int J Prev Med. .

Abstract

Relative internet search volumes (RSV) is now being consider as a measurement of awareness for most of the trending topics. During the recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, many researchers used the RSVs to interpret the population responses to the pandemic in various ways. By using the RSVs searched by Persian language people, we demonstrated that the Iranian people increased their knowledge and awareness of COVID-19 during the early phases of the disease before the first peak. However, their relative searches about the COVID-19 and its clinical symptoms decreased gradually despite of the gradual rise of the confirmed cases. Their less tendency to seek information about the COVID-19 could be one of the possible explanation for the increasing number of confirmed cases even several days after easing the disease related lockdown.

Keywords: Awareness; COVID-19; internet.

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Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(a and b) The number of confirmed cases and mortality report adopted the national committee on COVID-19 epidemiology and Iranian CDC - Ministry of health and medical education.[6] (c) The graph shows the relative internet search volumes for the four specific symptoms, normalized volume of all symptoms, the coronavirus term and normalized volume of the confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Iran
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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