A group of researchers from the World Bank are investigating how Google searches are correlated with COVID-19 waves and whether they may be able to anticipate local surges. Their primary results suggest that there is a link between search terms and cases of COVID-19. The study is still under review by Nature.
The researchers collected search data from September 2018 to December 2021 from 207 countries, looking for search terms related to COVID-19 symptoms.
The researchers found that searches for COVID-19 symptoms were correlated with and preceding COVID-19 cases. Terms like ‘how to treat coronavirus” or “coronavirus” were positively correlated with cases in 2021. These searches had a lag time of two to six days in 2021, suggesting that the searches may have preceded the cases.
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