key: cord-0917101-4y7dgivz authors: Martins-Filho, Paulo Ricardo; Souza Araújo, Adriano Antunes; Quintans-Júnior, Lucindo José; Santos, Victor Santana title: Digital public interest on coronavirus information and social distancing: a Brazilian nationwide analysis using an infodemiology approach date: 2020-09-02 journal: J Travel Med DOI: 10.1093/jtm/taaa154 sha: 939a71a2a10765a440c247c4dd401b44acc365b0 doc_id: 917101 cord_uid: 4y7dgivz The decline of social distancing measure in Brazil seems to be associated to the reduction of interest on coronavirus information. Exploring the trends of public interest in searching COVID 19 information on the Internet may be a useful and complementary tool to COVID-19 surveillance and commitment to disease preventive measures. Trends TM have been used as an efficient real time surveillance system for epidemic outbreaks and is recognized as a surrogate tool for estimating epidemiology and gathering data about patterns of disease and population behavior. 2 We used Google Trends TM to assess online search activity on the novel coronavirus in Brazil and the results were correlated with a geolocation index of social distancing (namely Social Isolation Index [SII]) provided by a geo-tracking and advertising software supplier. 3 The dataset from Google Trends TM was obtained using the keyword coronavirus and the results were expressed as a relative search volume (RSV) factor ranging between 1 and 100, where 100 represented the highest share of the term over the time series. SII was reported in percentage and higher values indicated a smaller number of people entering or leaving within a radius of 450 meters their habitual homes during a day. RSV and SII were extracted day by day from February 1 to August 20, 2020 and the relationship between these measures was analyzed using the Spearman's rank correlation (ρ). P-values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. The online interest for coronavirus information in Brazil suddenly increased since Since Google Trends TM measures the relative popularity of a specific term, it is possible that search queries for coronavirus had initially enthusiastically draw attention the public interest followed by a gradual shift of interest to new topics. It is important to rapidly detect and respond to public rumors, perceptions, attitudes and behaviors around COVID-19 and control measures. 5 Recently, an infodemiology study showed that public response time to COVID-19 was different across countries, and the overall duration of public attention was brief. 6 Moreover, the enthusiasm about returning to normalcy has the potential to undermine the lessons learnt 7 and communication campaigns should be continuously performed to provide trust information on COVID-19 and strengthening the public's vigilance to disease. 5 The decline in interest on coronavirus information in Brazil is worrying because it is followed by the reduction of None. Isolation, quarantine, social distancing and community containment: pivotal role for old-style public health measures in the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak Digital disease detection--harnessing the Web for public health surveillance Mapa brasileiro da COVID-19 Quarantine alone or in combination with other public health measures to control COVID-19: a rapid review. Cochrane database Syst Rev The pandemic of social media panic travels faster than the COVID-19 outbreak More effective strategies We dedicate this article to all the doctors, frontline health workers and other staff who are facing COVID-19. This study is part of the EpiSERGIPE project. All authors contributed equally to the manuscript.