Results and Discussion
COVID-19 related searches in Indonesia remained low in period of the first case that was detected on December 12th 2019 (CNN, 2020) and relatively dynamic until the first announcement of the COVID-2 first case in Indonesia in 3rd March 2020 (Ministry of Health, 2020). The same trend also occur globally, China and Taiwan (Husnayain, Fuad, & Su, 2020; Strzelecki, 2020). In addition, COVID-19 related searches in Indonesia continued to extend and reached its peak on March 16th , 2020 as local cases were reported and local transmission was announced. The searches related to COVID-19 were relatively high for two weeks. The searches for COVID-19 reached its peak and continuously high for two weeks from 16thMarch to 30th March 2020, as there was an increase of patients with positive infected COVID-19. The searches declined gradually afterward. Such declined searches is likely due to availability of information provided in television, online news reporting, and social media expert reporting (Keller et al., 2019).
An increase in face masks related searches in Bahasa in line with the increased of COVID-19 related searches (Figure 1). This reflects an awareness to use face masks for preventing the COVID-19 spread. However, such search also reflect a drive immense purchases of face masks that lead to face masks shortage in Indonesia. The search was relatively high when the first case of COVID-19 was announced and declined gradually in the following week. However, the face masks related search increased in the last week of March 2020. This could be due the increased number of positive case of COVID-19. In addition, this could be due to available information to wear cloth face coverings in public settings as alternative rather than wearing medical face masks (CDC, 2020).
Hand hygiene is one of precaution measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 that include hand wash and the use of hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer related search was started to increase in the first week of March 2020, while the searches for hand washing were fewer than hand sanitizer and were relatively stable. These searches were in line with COVID-19 and face masks related searches, expect in March 16th 2020 when hand sanitizer related search was higher than the face mask related search. This condition indicated that people were still gathering information about hand hygiene practices for precaution measures when the availability of face mask was limited. In addition, more information about to make homemade hand sanitizer were become more popular.
Figure 2 demonstrates overall search of COVID-19 were related term was dynamic. This is related to the public anxiety and curiosity following the announcement of international warning from WHO. The huge number of searches might be caused by public restlessness due to the increasing number COVID-19 positive cases. All of the search terms that we utilised in the study were in Bahasa. The use of keywords depict that people in Indonesia mostly prefer to search for information related to diseases and precaution measures in their native language. Therefore, GT data could also reflect the information needed by users based on keyword utilization.
We also found huge numbers of COVID-19 searches in seven provinces including Jakarta, East Java, West Java, Central Java, Bali, Special Province of Yogyakarta and South Sulawesi (Figure 2). Figure 2 demonstrates the search of COVID-19 increased dramatically for two days in the selected provinces that relates to the announcement of the first case of COVID-19 in Indonesia. Additionally, Fig.2 showed huge numbers of COVID-19 searches in Jakarta (91 points), while in other provinces the number was still quite low. This is due to the first case of COVID-19 was found in Jakarta. The search decreased gradually until the 2nd weeks, however, the number of searches was increased again in the selected province after in 3rdweek after the first confirmed case.in the seven selected provinces. This indicate that GT data could be utilised to plan public risk communication as well as precaution measures timely.
The study demonstrates that GT can be used as a tool to monitor public awareness and precaution measures toward COVID-19 epidemic infection in Indonesia couple days before and 3 weeks after the increased of confirmed cases. Appropriate information disease and precaution measures during outbreak is urgently needed. The provision of such information could help the spread of disease and more importantly, could reduce excessive amount of information circulating in affected populations which might induce public restlessness or panic (World Health Organization, 2020c). Thus, more effective measures to provide information should be taken by the Government and related parties to enhance public awareness and finally control the spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia particularly and in the worldwide.