The Global Interest in Vaccines and Its Prediction and Perspectives in the Era of COVID-19. Real-Time Surveillance Using Google Trends

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has globally overwhelmed all sectors of life. The fast development of vaccines against COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the course of the pandemic. Methods: Global data from Google Trends was analyzed for vaccines against flu, BCG, HPV, pneumococcal disease, polio, and COVID-19. The time frame includes the last five-year period starting from 17 April 2016. Multiple training of time series models with back testing, including Holt–Winters forecasting, Exponential Smoothing State Space, Linear model with trend and seasonal components (tlsm), and ARIMA was conducted. Forecasting according to the best fitting model was performed. Results: Correlation analysis did not reveal a decrease in interest in vaccines during the analyzed period. The prediction models provided a short-term forecast of the dynamics of interest for flu, HPV, pneumococcal and polio vaccines with 5–10% growth in interest for the first quarter of 2022 when compared to the same quarter of 2021. Conclusions: Despite the huge interest in the COVID-19 vaccine, there has not been a detectable decline in the overall interest in the five analyzed vaccines.

Global online interest in cervical cancer care in the time of COVID-19: An infodemiology study

“…On the other hand, increased online interest in the HPV vaccine may be related to the general increased online interest in vaccines given the pandemic – global online interest in both pneumococcal and influenza vaccines also peaked in February and March 2020 ( Paguio et al, 2020 ). However, another study found that despite increased interest in the COVID-19 vaccine because of the pandemic, online interest in other vaccines, including the BCG and polio vaccines, did not decrease ( Sycinska-Dziarnowska et al, 2021 ).…”

Mathematical Modeling to Predict COVID-19 Infection and Vaccination Trends

“…There will be an increased interest in vaccines between 5–10% in the first quarter of 2022. The short-term forecasts apply for influenza, HPV, pneumococcal, and polio vaccines, without being detected a decline in the overall interest for the COVID-19 vaccine [ 29 ]. However, confinement is still one of the most suitable prevention measures.…”

Mental Health Interest and Its Prediction during the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Google Trends

“…The ability to quickly track recent population behaviour might become an advantage, and in such an environment, GT is a powerful tool for tracing public interest. Other studies have used GT to monitor public concerns related to medical, social, and political issues [ 12 , 59 , 60 ]. This type of analysis is a modern alternative to smaller cross-sectional surveys with fewer data and longer time lag.…”