Internet search patterns reveal clinical course of COVID-19 disease progression and pandemic spread across 32 countries.

ABSTRACT: Effective public health response to novel pandemics relies on accurate and timely surveillance of pandemic spread, as well as characterization of the clinical course of the disease in affected individuals. We sought to determine whether Internet search patterns can be useful for tracking COVID-19 spread, and whether these data could also be useful in understanding the clinical progression of the disease in 32 countries across six continents. Temporal correlation analyses were conducted to characterize the relationships between a range of COVID-19 symptom-specific search terms and reported COVID-19 cases and deaths for each country from January 1 through April 20, 2020. Increases in COVID-19 symptom-related searches preceded increases in reported COVID-19 cases and deaths by an average of 1

SUBMITTER: Lu T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7878474 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature