Creating a timeline for covid
Google Trends as a window into our collective covid consciousness
Canada probably had one of the longest arcs with covid in the world. That said, our interest in covid matters appears to have peaked around the end of 2021. In some cases, our interest in a covid phenomenon may be even shorter, i.e. intense interest in toilet paper around May 2020.
For those of us still contending with the after-effects of covid, whether due to legal, financial, health or some other disruption, covid may not feel “over.”
For covid hangover sufferers then, here is a bit of graphical therapy, as seen through the eyes of Google Trends. Happily, many of the challenging themes of covid have subsided.
Here is Canada’s interest compared with the US (red), the UK (yellow), and France (green). It appears that for all four countries, interest flared up at the end of 2021 and then died out.
Interest in vaccines followed the same pattern in Canada, with interest dying out at the end of 2021.
While interest in vaccines and covid has returned to a zero interest, other topics appear to have more staying power. Here, for example, is myocarditis:
Here is turbo cancer:
Here is long covid:
Happily, interest in cancer has not changed in the past few years. It continues to draw more interest than long covid:
Heart attack and stroke show no change in interest over the past 5 years, while “sudden death” had a peak of interest in July 2022:
SOCIO-POLITICAL TERMS
Vaccine passport interest subsided in early 2022:
same for the Truck Convoy:
MEDICAL SYSTEM
ICU interest subsided at the end of 2021. It has an interesting pattern of peaks.
Some other topics that have “niche markets”
PERSONALITIES
Numbers of searches on a topic could also be due to people not using goog to search anymore. When results are stifled or stilted, people stop looking there.
Hello! It has been a while 🙂 Thank you, I guess, for confirming my impression that I am surrounded by infantalized humans with the attention span and focus of puppies in a chicken coop. No wonder the whole establishment that brought us the criminal corruption of the last few years is still up and running stong - now feeding us a binge of climate bull, and ensuring the poorest amoung us are hardest hit... obviously my experiences over that time have not made me more optimistic about my society. So happy I get to escape to the river and watch my puppies run like crazy things 😉