'Quarantine' on Google and YouTube During the Covid-19 Pandemic: United States, United Kingdom, Spain and Italy

Background: On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the SARS-CoV-2 virus a pandemic. Spain and Italy decreed a state of emergency, implementing an enforced confinement of citizens. The United States and the United Kingdom took similar steps. Method: This article quantitatively investigates the evolution of the most searched terms on Google and YouTube on 'quarantine'. Google Trends data on the word 'quarantine' was used in the four countries with the highest number of total deaths from Covid-19 disease at the end of May 2020: United States (85,906), United Kingdom United (33,614), Italy (31,368) and Spain (27,459) from February to June 2020. Results: Linear regression analysis show a positive correlation between searches for the word "quarantine" in Italy in relation to those in the United States (R2 = 0.96) and Spain (R2 = 0.96), being able to generate predictive models for the future. Comparison of the data for Italy with the UK is less statistically relevant (R2 = 0.78). Conclusions: There is an increase in the searches for 'quarantine' in Google and YouTube up to June 2020. The citizens of these countries first searched for this concept on Google and later on YouTube. There is a statistical correlation between Google searches in Italy compared separately to the United States and Spain. The quarantine data of interest in Italy generate a prediction pattern in the United States and Spain. However, this phenomenon does not happen between Italy and the UK due to the lack of statistical correlation.