The relationship between public attention and COVID-19: evidence from the big data analysis of Google trends

Kai Lisa Lo, Huizhu Liu, Minhua Yang and Jackson Jinhong Mi

Applied Economics Letters, 2022, vol. 29, issue 17, 1586-1593

Abstract: We investigate the impacts of the public attention towards the COVID-19 on the situation of the epidemic worldwide and on public mobility with Google trends. We use the number of searches for two keywords ‘corona virus’ and ‘mask’ on the Google search index to show people’s public attention towards the epidemic. The findings show that confirmed cases and death rates are significantly positively (negatively) associated with the public attention paid to epidemic in the early (later) stage of the epidemic. The reason may be that in the early stage of the epidemic, public attention increased outpatient rates and therefore confirmed cases significantly, while in the later stage, public attention accordingly increased cure rates significantly. The epidemic significantly eases for people’s mobility trends when refraining from going outdoors. Such impacts are more profound for low-income countries.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2021.1948958

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