BACKGROUND
The volume of search keywords on Google can be used as a reference to an ongoing online trend during COVID-19 pandemic.
OBJECTIVE
This study was aimed to estimate the responsiveness and public awareness in early days of the COVID-19 outbreak in Indonesia using Google Trends relative search volumes (RSV).
METHODS
Sixty terms or keywords forming six topics included in the analysis were basic information, prevention, government policy, socio-economic, anxiety, and other issues related to COVID-19. All these keywords were checked for surveillance purposes between January 1 and May 4, 2020. The Python programming language was used for data mining from Google Trends databases. Correlation analysis was conducted to examine the correlations between the incidence of COVID-19 and the search terms.
RESULTS
Community response and awareness in the six topics were associated with the number of COVID-19 cases (r range between 0.570-0.825, P-value<.005). Before the first case announced in Indonesian, the prominent topics were basic information and other issues. One month after the first case, all topics experienced an increase in RSV. In the phase of outbreak, socio-economic and anxiety got much more attentions.
CONCLUSIONS
The government should consider to optimize the internet as a media for timely delivering most relevant information and dynamically respond massive queries, and improve health communications to increase public awareness and intention to prevent the disease.