Information Seeking Responses to News of Local COVID-19 Cases: Evidence from Internet Search Data

Abstract: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is a global pandemic with community circulation in many countries, including the U.S. where every state is reporting confirmed cases. The course of this pandemic will be largely shaped by how governments enact timely policies, disseminate the information, and most importantly, how the public reacts to them. Here, we examine informationseeking responses to the first COVID-19 case public announcement in a state. By using an eventstudy framework, we show that such news increases collective attention to the crisis right away, but the elevated level of attention is short-lived, even though the initial announcements were followed by increasingly strong measures. We find that people respond to the first report of COVID-19 in their state by immediately seeking information about COVID-19, as measured by searches for coronavirus, coronavirus symptoms and hand sanitizer. On the other hand, searches for information regarding community level policies (e.g., quarantine, school closures, testing), or personal health strategies (e.g., masks, grocery delivery, over-the-counter medications) do not appear to be immediately triggered by first reports. These results are encouraging given our study period is relatively early in the epidemic and more elaborate policy responses were not yet part of the public discourse. Further analysis will track evolving patterns of responses to subsequent flows of public information.