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Signals on COVID-19 Impact from Google Trends

What is happening to the economy? How bad is it? Are things starting to look any better? Questions like this are commonplace throughout the country during the pandemic crisis as people struggle to survive and adapt. Some of these questions may be answered in part from interesting real-time data on searches that people conduct on Google. Here, scholars used real-time data from Google searches to gauge various aspects related to how COVID-19 affects the economy. In particular, they studied the following categories through Google searches:

• COVID-19 disease concern
• Employment related concern
• Signs of need for food and essential supplies
• Travel and hospitality industry demand
• How local commerce is affected
• How family life is affected

Google Trends is an online tool that analyzes the popularity of search queries on Google across multiple regions. Google Trends is very helpful in tracking the movements in the markets or economy on real-time basis. The Google Trends tool creates a search index for each search unit based on its popularity relative to all other search terms queried in a region. The index value ranges between 0 and 100. The higher the index value for a search query, the higher the popularity for that search query.

Researchers conducted a trend analysis to understand the impact of COVID-19, not only to evaluate the economic health of the comparison MSAs, but also to examine the level of its impact on the health and family life of the individuals in the MSAs of study. The index data was collected for 20 MSAs between January 2020 and October 2020. The index values for the Tampa Bay MSA are for the Tampa-St Petersburg-Clearwater MSA alone and do not include the three other MSAs considered part of the Tampa Bay region in this report.

1. COVID Concern
   This is the proxy for the level of concern the population of a regions is showing for pandemic.
   鈥渃ovid鈥� + 鈥渃ovid symptoms鈥� + 鈥渃oronavirus cases鈥� + 鈥渃ovid testing near me鈥� + 鈥渢oilet paper鈥�
   
   
2. Employment Concern
   This is the proxy for the impact of COVID-19 on the economy and employment levels.
   鈥渉iring freeze鈥� +鈥漧ayoffs鈥� + 鈥渟everance pay鈥� + 鈥渦nemployment benefits鈥� + 鈥渦nemployment鈥�
   
   
3. Search for Assistance
   This is the proxy for the impact of COVID-19 on the individuals belonging to low-income strata
   鈥渇ood stamps鈥� + 鈥渇ree food鈥� + 鈥渇ree meals鈥� + 鈥渟mall business loans鈥� + 鈥渟oup kitchen near me鈥�
   
   
4. Local Commerce
   This is the proxy for the impact of COVID-19 on the regular commercial activity of a region.
   鈥渃oncert t颈肠办别迟蝉鈥� + 鈥渆vents near me鈥� + 鈥渕alls near me鈥� + 鈥渕ovies near me鈥� + 鈥渙pera t颈肠办别迟蝉鈥�
   
   
5. Online Retail
   This is the proxy for the impact of COVID-19 on the e-commerce activity in a region.
   鈥淎mazon grocery鈥� + 鈥渃anned food鈥� + 鈥渇ood delivery鈥� + 鈥済rocery delivery鈥� + 鈥渙nline grocery鈥�
   
   
6. Family Life
   This the proxy of how family life of individuals is impacted by the pandemic. Researchers looked at domestic abuse, divorce and fun activities.
   1. Domestic abuse: 鈥渄omestic abuse鈥�
   2. Divorce: 鈥渄ivorce lawyers鈥�
   3. Fun activities: 鈥渇amily games鈥� + 鈥渇un games鈥� + 鈥渃濒别补苍颈苍驳鈥�