Google searches for the keywords of “wash hands” predict the speed of national spread of COVID-19 outbreak among 21 countries

Lin, Yu‐Hsuan; Liu, Chun-Hao; Chiu, Yu‐Chuan

doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.020

Cited by 193 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…A recent study by Lin et al (2020) suggests that increased search for washing hands on Google was correlated with a lower spread of COVID-19 in a sample across 21 countries. This adds support to the current study; collective meanings being created in COVID-19 through public awareness has potential to promote the “frequent hand washing” behavior across nations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

COVID-19 Place Confinement, Pro-Social, Pro-environmental Behaviors, and Residents’ Wellbeing: A New Conceptual Framework

2020

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Residents’ wellbeing in the present COVID-19 global health crisis requires a deeper understanding to determine appropriate management strategies to promote sustainable behaviors and contribute to human and planetary health. Residents’ behavior can have a profound influence in contributing to personal and global community’s health by responding effectively to emergency strategies in disease outbreaks such as the Coronavirus. It is evident that an understanding of residents’ behavior(s) pre COVID-19 across fields have relied on over-simplistic models, many of which will need to be revisited. Our interaction with people and nature while respecting social distancing has profound positive impacts on our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. The current health pandemic has called that people be confined in their homes across many nations as a means to control the spread of the virus and save lives. This calls for research exploring the mechanisms; this paper develops and proposes a conceptual framework suggesting that place confinement promotes pro-social and household pro-environmental behaviors which could become habitual and contribute further to our people’s and our planet’s health. The proposed model concerns socio-economically favored social sectors whose survival is not as threatened by the pandemic as the poor sectors where wellbeing (and mental health) are at high risk. Some evidence shows that human connectedness to place may contribute to engagement in desirable behaviors. Interaction with other members of the household can help create meanings leading to collective actions promoting psychological wellbeing. Promoting hygienic behaviors in the household (frequent hand washing) while at the same time being conscious not to keep the water flowing when not required would contribute to a range of benefits (health, financial, biospheric, altruistic) and promote wellbeing. Engaging in pro-social behaviors may result in positive effects on psychological wellbeing, reducing mental distress giving rise to a sense of attachment and belongingness, trust and overall life satisfaction. Engaging people in low-effort pro-environmental behavior to maintain some levels of physical activity and biological harmony with natural environmental settings (e.g., gardening) may help reduce anxiety and distress. This is the first study exploring the interplay of relationships between place confinement, pro-social behavior, household pro-environmental behaviors, place attachment as a multi-dimensional construct and presenting their relationships to residents’ wellbeing. Behavioral change interventions are proposed to promote lifestyle change for people’s wellbeing and broader societal benefits.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

COVID-19 Place Confinement, Pro-Social, Pro-environmental Behaviors, and Residents’ Wellbeing: A New Conceptual Framework

2020

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“…It has been illustrated that data from the online social media and Internet searches are correlated with several epidemics that have previously happened, such as seasonal in uenza epidemics [7], Dengue [8], MERS [9] and H1N1 [10]. Regarding COVID-19, several works [11][12][13][14] have demonstrated signi cant correlation between the Internet search and the pandemic spreading among different countries. However, it still remains unclear what regional factors the Internet's predictive abilities may relate to, and whether they are useful surveilling the spread of the disease.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

More Active Internet-Search on Google and Twitter Posting for COVID-19 Corresponds with Lower Infection Rate in the 50 U.S. States

Sun

Gloor²

2020

Preprint

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Abstract As the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to rage worldwide, the United States has become the most affected country with more than 2.5 million total confirmed cases up to now (June 2, 2020). In this work, we investigate the predictive power of online social media and Internet search for the COVID-19 pandemic among 50 U.S. states. By collecting the state-level daily trends through both Twitter and Google Trends, we observe a high but state-different lag correlation with the number of daily confirmed cases. We further find that the predictive accuracy measured by the correlation coefficient is positively correlated to a state’s demographic, air traffic volume and GDP development. Most importantly, we show that a state’s early infection rate is negatively correlated with the lag to the previous peak in Internet search and tweeting about COVID-19, indicating that the earlier the collective awareness on Twitter/Google in a state, the lower is the infection rate.

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“…Mortality rates associated with COVID-19 may rise when hospitals become overwhelmed and have fewer resources to treat patients with life-threatening symptoms (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/coronavirus). This result provides additional support for the notion that personal protection is critical for maintaining control over the COVID-19 pandemic [15][16][17][18][19].…”

Section: Avoiding a Second Peakmentioning

confidence: 53%

“…high rates of testing have been emphasized to mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in addition to SD [15][16][17][18][19] .…”

Section: Controlling Rst Peakmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mathematical model of COVID-19 intervention scenarios for São Paulo- Brazil

Neto

Reis²,

Brizzi

et al. 2020

Preprint

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An epidemiological compartmental model was used to simulate social distancing strategies to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent a second wave in São Paulo, Brazil. Optimization using genetic algorithm was used to determine the optimal solutions. Our results suggest the best-case strategy for São Paulo is to maintain or increase the current magnitude of social distancing for at least 60 more days and increase the current levels of personal protection behaviors by a minimum of 10% (e.g., wearing facemasks, proper hand hygiene and avoid agglomeration). Followed by a long-term oscillatory level of social distancing with a stepping-down approach every 80 days over a period of two years with continued protective behavior.

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Google searches for the keywords of “wash hands” predict the speed of national spread of COVID-19 outbreak among 21 countries

Cited by 193 publications

References 12 publications

COVID-19 Place Confinement, Pro-Social, Pro-environmental Behaviors, and Residents’ Wellbeing: A New Conceptual Framework

COVID-19 Place Confinement, Pro-Social, Pro-environmental Behaviors, and Residents’ Wellbeing: A New Conceptual Framework

More Active Internet-Search on Google and Twitter Posting for COVID-19 Corresponds with Lower Infection Rate in the 50 U.S. States

Mathematical model of COVID-19 intervention scenarios for São Paulo- Brazil

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