Public interest in different types of masks and its relationship with pandemic and policy measures during the COVID-19 pandemic: a study using Google Trends data.

ABSTRACT: Google Trends data have been used to investigate various themes on online information seeking. It was unclear if the population from different parts of the world shared the same amount of attention to different mask types during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to reveal which types of masks were frequently searched by the public in different countries, and evaluated if public attention to masks could be related to mandatory policy, stringency of the policy, and transmission rate of COVID-19. By referring to an open dataset hosted at the online database Our World in Data, the 10 countries with the highest total number of COVID-19 cases as of 9th of February 2022 were identified. For each of these countries, the weekly new cases per million population, reproduction rate (of COVID-19)

SUBMITTER: Yeung AWK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10286862 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature