Over the weekend I've been playing around with the Google Trends API, and taking a look at how the rise in interest for Coronavirus has affected what we search for.
1/15: As the panic grows, more & more people are trying to cancel flights
1/15: As the panic grows, more & more people are trying to cancel flights
2/15: People are not just trying to claim on existing travel insurance policies, but also to take out new ones:
3/15: While fewer people are buying flights overall, searches for flight deals have risen:
4/15: With the uncertainty in the markets following a rise in Western cases, more people are looking to sell their stock and learn about short-selling:
5/15: Overall, this has led to a sharp spike in searches containing the term 'recession'.
N.B. that 'recession' searches don't rise when cases start to rise in China, around the end of Jan.
N.B. that 'recession' searches don't rise when cases start to rise in China, around the end of Jan.
6/15: With all the sports events that have been cancelled so far, people are increasingly trying to find out whether the Olympics has been cancelled
7/15: And there's been a steady drop off in searches for tickets to the Olympics
8/15: As searches for 'coronavirus' have risen, so too have searches for Covid-19's main symptoms.
Could be due to more cases, or people with regular coughs/fevers/sore throats becoming more concerned about symptoms.
Could be due to more cases, or people with regular coughs/fevers/sore throats becoming more concerned about symptoms.
9/15: More people are turning to online symptom checkers to diagnose their symptoms, but there hasn't been a rise in search volume for online doctors
10/15: As companies have closed down their offices, there's been growth in the number of people researching remote work
11/15: Slack and Zoom have both seen a large growth in search traffic over the past week (and steady growth the weeks prior)
12/15: As @OpenTable have been flagging, there's been a steady drop in the number of people looking to eat out:
13/15: Speaking of being in confined spaces with lots of other people, searches related to the cinema have fallen:
14/15: Some people thought that a pandemic would lead to a surge in Netflix use, as people stay in. Not saying it won't happen, but it hasn't yet
15/15: and if the threat of quarantine was going to bring @onepeloton back from the brink, it hasn't happened yet
(@GoZwift hasn't seen much action either)
(@GoZwift hasn't seen much action either)
