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. 2022 Jul 9;12(7):223.
doi: 10.3390/bs12070223.

Time-Series Associations between Public Interest in COVID-19 Variants and National Vaccination Rate: A Google Trends Analysis

Cecilia Cheng  1
Affiliations

Time-Series Associations between Public Interest in COVID-19 Variants and National Vaccination Rate: A Google Trends Analysis

Cecilia Cheng. Behav Sci (Basel). .

Abstract

The emergence of a constantly mutating novel virus has led to considerable public anxiety amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Information seeking is a common strategy to cope with pandemic anxiety. Using Google Trends analysis, this study investigated public interest in COVID-19 variants and its temporal associations with the disease-prevention measure of vaccination during the initial COVID-19 vaccine rollout period (13 December 2020 to 25 September 2021). Public interest was operationalized as the relative search volume of online queries of variant-related terms in the countries first affected by the Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants: the UK, South Africa, and India, respectively. The results show that public interest in COVID-19 variants was greater during the Delta-variant-predominant period than before this period. The time-series cross-correlation analysis revealed positive temporal associations (i.e., greater such public interest was accompanied by an increase in national vaccination rate) tended to occur more frequently and at earlier time lags than the negative temporal associations. This study yielded new findings regarding the temporal changes in public interest in COVID-19 variants, and the between-country variations in these public interest changes can be explained by differences in the rate and pace of vaccination among the countries of interest.

Keywords: coping; infodemiology; information seeking; infosurveillance; pandemic anxiety; search query.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cumulative COVID-19 confirmed case by country. The study period spanned from Epi Week 51 2020 (13–19 December 2020) to Epi Week 38 2021 (19–25 September 2021). The gray area depicts the Delta-predominant period. Data adapted from OurWorldInData.org, accessed on 6 June 2022.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Weekly COVID-19 hospitalization by country. The study period spanned from Epi Week 51 2020 (13–19 December 2020) to Epi Week 38 2021 (19–25 September 2021). The gray area depicts the Delta-predominant period. Data adapted from OurWorldInData.org, accessed on 6 June 2022. The data for India are not available.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Cumulative COVID-19 vaccination rate by country. The study period spanned from Epi Week 51 2020 (13–19 December 2020) to Epi Week 38 2021 (19–25 September 2021). The gray area depicts the Delta-predominant period. Data adapted from OurWorldInData.org, accessed on 6 June 2022.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Weekly variations in relative search volumes (RSVs) of query terms related to COVID-19 variants by country. The study period spanned from Epi Week 51 2020 (13–19 December 2020) to Epi Week 38 2021 (19–25 September 2021). The gray area depicts the Delta-predominant period. Data adapted from the Google TrendsTM website.
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