1. How the world thinks about coronavirus
We used Google Trends to understand the way three different countries - US, UK, Italy - have made coronavirus-related searches in the past three months. US and UK were chosen because most of the google queries from these countries would be in English and hence capture most searches while also allowing direct comparison between the two countries, and Italy was chosen for the disproportionate impact it has endured.
Google Trends show relative popularity of a keyword/phrase in a certain geography and time period as compared to the total searches made in that geography and time period. The relative popularity varies between 0 and 100, where 100 shows peak interest in the given keyword/phrase. The tool allows comparison of relative popularity of a search phrase across geographies.
Google Trends show relative popularity of a keyword/phrase in a certain geography and time period as compared to the total searches made in that geography and time period. The relative popularity varies between 0 and 100, where 100 shows peak interest in the given keyword/phrase. The tool allows comparison of relative popularity of a search phrase across geographies.
Italians vs Americans - who's more interested in the coronavirus?
First, let's look at how Italians and Americans differ in their interest in the term "coronavirus". Predictably, Italian interest peaks earlier because the disease hit them earlier. There is a sharp jump in Italian searches on Jan 31, the day the first case was discovered in Rome. The interest dies down until it skyrockets and reaches its peak on Feb 23, which is around when a lot of cases came to light in Lombardy, and the situation deteriorated rapidly.
In contrast, interest in coronavirus in the US begins around Jan 21, when the very first cases were found, and tapers off to almost nil within two weeks. As more cases are uncovered in US and internationally, searches rise sharply towards the end of February to peak on March 12, and have been tapering off since.
One more interesting thing to note: the Italian peak is nearly twice as high as the American peak, and the relative popularity continues to be significantly higher, which goes to show how much more focused the Italians have been on searching for the coronavirus as compared to Americans, who have had other things on mind (though there's a possibility that Americans have been making coronavirus-related searches without using the word "coronavirus", a possibility that exists for Italians too). Perhaps this goes to show how badly Italy has been ravaged by the virus.
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| Relative Google search popularity of coronavirus - Italy vs America |
Don't worry, it's just the flu!
Next, to see what people thought of the comparisons between coronavirus and seasonal flu, we checked the phrase coronavirus flu (without quotes to include all searches featuring both the words) in the US and UK. Both countries see the beginning of their interest starting Jan 21, when the first US case was reported. UK sees a small spike on Jan 31, which is when its first case was reported. The interest in both countries then tapers off and starts to rise simultaneously around Feb 21.
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| Relative Google search popularity of coronavirus flu - US vs UK |
It's hard to pinpoint what led to the simultaneous spike. By this time, a lot of Right Wing pundits, including Fox News anchors, had started to make these comparisons, which could have piqued public interest. It can't be attributed to Trump's first known comparison of the two diseases, because that happened at a press conference on Feb 26, although it's likely that this helped sustain public interest.
The next spike, again simultaneous and this time far more pronounced, comes on March 9 - the day Trump repeated the comparison in a tweet (below). Correlation isn't causation, but the simultaneous spike makes the role played by Trump's tweet hard to ignore. The relative popularity of the phrase is expectedly higher in the US, but the matching trends in the two countries show the global impact the utterances of a powerful leader can have.
It should be emphasized that not everyone who googles "coronavirus" and "flu" in the same query necessarily thinks of the two diseases as similar, but there's a reasonable probability that this would be the case for a lot of folks.
It's also interesting to note that Trump's March 24 Fox News town hall, where he repeated the misleading comparison, failed to generate a significant spike in either of the countries. Maybe by this time the reality had dawned on people?
Not even the flu, it's a hoax!
Next, we checked Google Trends for the phrase coronavirus hoax (without quotes), for US and UK. Both countries see a massive spike on Feb 29. Why, you ask?
Again, correlation isn't causation but it's noteworthy that Trump used the words "coronavirus" and "hoax" in the same sentence at a rally the previous day (though he didn't exactly call coronavirus a hoax). Expectedly, relative peak popularity of this phrase in the UK is only about a fifth of what it is in the US, but the trends are similar. The phrase saw another spike in both countries around March 10, but the reason for this is harder to pinpoint.
Usual caveats about googling "coronavirus" and "hoax" in the same query, apply.
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| Relative Google search popularity of coronavirus hoax - US vs UK |
Maybe coronavirus is the flu, but covid-19 surely isn't
Likening coronavirus to the flu is scientific blasphemy, so we compared trends in the phrases covid-19 flu and coronavirus flu, in US, keeping in mind that people googling the more scientific term covid-19 are likely to be better informed about the disease than those googling coronavirus. The expectation was that the relative popularity of the phrase covid-19 flu would be far lower than that of coronavirus flu.
Bam! This is exactly right. Both queries follow similar trends but the relative popularity is on expected lines.
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| Relative Google search popularity of covid-19 flu and coronavirus flu in US |
Covid-19 is now considerably more popular than coronavirus flu
There's good news: Covid-19 has become a more popular query than coronavirus flu. Moreover, the former's popularity is holding steady even as the latter's is dropping sharply. This result complements NYT's finding that people are increasingly turning towards reliable sources of news.
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| Relative Google search popularity of covid-19 and coronavirus flu in US |
And what about Hydroxychloroquine?
"a gallon of Hydroxychloroquine a day keeps the doctor away" - (to only slightly) paraphrase Trump. No wonder all this talk, and not just by Trump, of the drug being a miracle cure has piqued public interest. India's topping US, most likely because the country has seen some successful (though very limited) trials of the drug against Covid-19 and has developed its own cult around it.
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| Relative Google search popularity of hydroxychloroquine in US, UK and India |
Which US states are most focused on the coronavirus?
Finally, to check how glued the different US states are to the disease, we compared the relative popularity of the word "coronavirus" across all states. NJ takes the top spot while Mississippi, where the outbreak is yet to spin out of control and which is also ranked one of the last on an index of social distancing, is the most blithe.
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| Relative Google search popularity of coronavirus in different states |
2. The Magic of widespread testing - Why have Iceland and Korea done better than Italy and Netherlands?
This post and its graphics are based on a brilliant Medium post and a twitter thread.
Iceland, blessed with a tiny population of 364,000, has possibly the highest testing rate of all countries - 8500 for every 100,000 people, as of April 8. Korea's rate stands at 931 in a much bigger population of 52 million. Although testing rates have now picked up for Italy (1335 per 100,000) and Netherlands (593 per 100,000), these two countries are known to have focused their testing on the older, at-greater-risk population, in contrast to Iceland and Korea which have tested more widely and randomly.
As a result, Iceland and Korea can boast of more reliable data on distribution of infected people by age. It turns out that, in both these countries, share of infected population is much higher among the young than the old, implying that young people - possibly given their socializing habits - are far more likely to be spreaders of the disease while facing a lower risk personally.
This is not seen in the data for Italy and Netherlands because of restricted and non-random testing. The disparity could also be a result of older populations in these countries compared to Iceland and Korea, but age alone would probably not account for such a large disparity.
It's quite likely that democratized testing allowed Iceland and Korea to track and isolate the infected population early on, even while they were asymptomatic, thus leading to far fewer cases and deaths as compared to Italy and Netherlands.
Iceland, blessed with a tiny population of 364,000, has possibly the highest testing rate of all countries - 8500 for every 100,000 people, as of April 8. Korea's rate stands at 931 in a much bigger population of 52 million. Although testing rates have now picked up for Italy (1335 per 100,000) and Netherlands (593 per 100,000), these two countries are known to have focused their testing on the older, at-greater-risk population, in contrast to Iceland and Korea which have tested more widely and randomly.
As a result, Iceland and Korea can boast of more reliable data on distribution of infected people by age. It turns out that, in both these countries, share of infected population is much higher among the young than the old, implying that young people - possibly given their socializing habits - are far more likely to be spreaders of the disease while facing a lower risk personally.
This is not seen in the data for Italy and Netherlands because of restricted and non-random testing. The disparity could also be a result of older populations in these countries compared to Iceland and Korea, but age alone would probably not account for such a large disparity.
It's quite likely that democratized testing allowed Iceland and Korea to track and isolate the infected population early on, even while they were asymptomatic, thus leading to far fewer cases and deaths as compared to Italy and Netherlands.
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3. Unrecorded deaths show the real toll of Covid-19
This post and its graphics are is based on a twitter thread.
The global toll from the outbreak is already huge but might still be a significant underestimation. The chart below from Italy compares the average mortality (blue line) between 2015-2019 to the confirmed mortality from coronavirus (green line) and the total mortality in 2020 (red line). The huge red spike must be a combination of unrecorded deaths from coronavirus and the increased mortality from other diseases, given that the severely burdened healthcare system is being unable to attend to those. We might get a better idea of the total toll from coronavirus as Britain has decided to record outside-hospital deaths.
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4.The Great "Cessation" of our time
The first three signature pink charts from Financial Times show the jolt to Chinese economy and the reduction in global traffic. The ones after that show the collapse across sectors and regions, and investor flight towards high-rated sovereign bonds in the midst of a stock market crash.
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5.Lessons from the last great pandemic - how to saves lives and economy at the same time
This post is based on a Nat Geo article and this twitter thread.
There's been a lot of talk about going back to business-as-usual because apparently the cure - a complete economic shutdown - might be worse than the ailment (the outbreak of Covid-19). Drawing upon the Flu of 1918, the first chart below shows that the cure certainly works by reducing the death toll. Moreover, as shown by the second chart, American cities that had stronger restrictions in place also showed a stronger economic recovery once the pandemic had passed.
There's been a lot of talk about going back to business-as-usual because apparently the cure - a complete economic shutdown - might be worse than the ailment (the outbreak of Covid-19). Drawing upon the Flu of 1918, the first chart below shows that the cure certainly works by reducing the death toll. Moreover, as shown by the second chart, American cities that had stronger restrictions in place also showed a stronger economic recovery once the pandemic had passed.
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Credits: Link
6.Fiscal response by countries
This post and its chart are based on a Quartz article. The outbreak has been met with historic relief packages by governments around the world. The chart below how different countries compare. It's all but certain that there will be more fiscal relief coming soon.  7.Where's the US fiscal spending going?
Poetry in visualization, this. Note that the thinnest strand is worth $80 million.
The chart has been taken from here.
 8.Stock market impact of Black Swan events Another absolute stunner by Visual Capitalist.  9.To think that Covid-19 isn't even the most contagious or deadly disease out there...
Covid-19, at least on paper, isn't the most contagious or deadly disease. But one factor that makes it uniquely dangerous is that it spreads while its victims are still asymptomatic, which wasn't the case for its next of kin, SARS.
Read this twitter thread for more details. The chart below has been taken from here.  |