Covid: What are the top pandemic Google searches in Wales?

Wales was locked down for the first time in March last year

It has been almost a year since Wales, along with the rest of the UK, first went into lockdown.

Since then, the coronavirus pandemic has dominated our lives - and our internet searches.

Over the past year, some of the most popular Covid-related searches in Wales, according to Google Trends, relate to lockdown, symptoms, masks and Zoom.

Can we learn anything about the pandemic from our internet searches?

Covid lockdown and rule changes across the UK

At the start of the pandemic, the four nations of the UK were largely united in their rules.

But as cases started to drop off, the different governments began to ease restrictions at different speeds, and these changes were reflected in Google searches.

In Wales, searches for "Wales lockdown rules" and "Covid rules Wales" all began to significantly increase for the first time in mid-May - reaching new highs during the week of 24 to 30 May.

This was around the time that each of the UK nations started to ease lockdown restrictions, with rules differing across the UK.

Wales sets its own lockdown rules - but a different direction among the UK nations last summer was reflected in Google trends

In Wales, it was announced on 28 May that two people from different households would be able to meet outdoors, similar to the change in rules in Scotland.

But at the same time, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced six people in England could meet outside.

This was just the start of a rise in searches for each nation's specific lockdown rules - with UK-wide peaks for "Wales lockdown".

September saw the previous search peak in a single week for "Wales lockdown" double, as several of Wales' council areas entered local lockdowns.

The peak for the whole pandemic followed a month later, when Wales announced its 17-day firebreak lockdown.

There was another jump in searches in mid-December, in the week before First Minister Mark Drakeford announced a new lockdown in the run-up to Christmas.

Politicians have clashed over travel rules between Wales and England during the pandemic

Mark Drakeford, the Welsh Government and devolution

This increase in searches for Wales' lockdown rules also led to a rise in searches for some of the political figures and institutions in the country.

The pre-pandemic peak in Google search traffic for Mark Drakeford over the past five years was in December 2018 - when he was elected as the leader of Welsh Labour, replacing Carwyn Jones.

Since then, searches in Wales for Mark Drakeford peaked in December 2020.

They measured more than five times higher than the largest number of searches for Carwyn Jones within Wales in a single week, in 2017.

This surge in searches for the first minister was repeated across the rest of the UK, where traffic relating to Mr Drakeford increased by a factor of five compared to its pre-pandemic peak.

There were record searches for First Minister Mark Drakeford

Searches from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland each peaked in mid-October 2020, when Mr Drakeford announced Wales' firebreak lockdown.

The Welsh government also saw a boost in search traffic, with a five-fold increase on its pre-pandemic record in Wales and a three-fold increase in England, although the increase in interest was less significant in both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, searches for "what is devolution" - the system in which powers were transferred from Westminster to Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast - also increased.

In England, queries relating to devolution increased nine-fold, compared to its previous peak over the past five years, while in Wales, they more than doubled.

The Senedd in Cardiff Bay, where Wales' devolved parliament sits

Covid case rates and Google searches

Another of the top search queries over the past year in Wales was "Covid symptoms".

You might expect this to have peaked during the early days of the pandemic, when lockdown first began and the full extent of the disease was still relatively unknown - a loss of smell and taste, for example, was not added to the list of symptoms in the UK until 18 May.

However, despite a high search volume last March, the peak of searches for "Covid symptoms" was in September - when cases were relatively low.

Does this suggest anything about the spread of coronavirus in early September?

In the last week of August, the number of cases per 100,000 people in Wales stood at just 10.1, with a positivity rate - the number of tests which return a positive result - of 1.2%.

In the subsequent weeks, the case rate grew to 23, then to 34.6, 49.8 and then 75.8 by the end of September.

Positivity rates increased to 2%, 2.2% and 3.4%, before exceeding 5% in the last week of the month.

Searches for Covid symptoms then halved during Wales' firebreak period, before rising again to their September levels in early December, when the epidemic was growing rapidly.

In short, searches for Covid symptoms in Wales have roughly correlated with rises and falls in cases.

Deliveries, Zoom, face masks, home haircuts and lockdown fashion

Unsurprisingly, some of the search trends which saw big increases related to deliveries, masks, DIY, haircuts and Zoom, the video conferencing platform.

Most of these terms peaked early on in the pandemic - deliveries and Zoom in particular - with searches for these in Wales now sitting at about a third of the level they reached last spring.

Face masks have continued to record a high number of searches, with a first flurry of queries in April about how to make face masks at home.

Face masks were made compulsory in Wales in September, but the peak in searches came with a rule change in England

But the largest peak for "face masks" searches in Wales was in mid-July, when they were made compulsory in shops in England.

By the time Wales made masks compulsory in shops in September, there were only 45% of the number of searches compared to July.

Meanwhile, a new search term - for "maskne" - appeared for the first time in August as their use started to become more common, leading to acne problems.

Home haircuts have also fallen in and out of fashion on Google in Wales.

Searches for "how to cut hair" reached three times their previous five-year peak in April 2020, as the effect of hairdressers and barbers being forced to close started to become more and more noticeable.

These queries dropped to about 6% of their April level during the summer months, but climbed back to about 25% of that peak during the winter lockdown.

Changes in fashion trends are also evident from looking at Google Trends.

The number of searches for suits and shirts were down, reaching five-year lows as more of us began to work from home, with searches for joggers, pyjamas and fluffy dressing gown each reaching five-year highs.

Covid vaccines in Wales

Google searches for vaccines roughly doubled in Wales compared to the previous four years in the early part of the pandemic, but remained relatively stable between March and November.

The announcement of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine being 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 on 9 November saw the number of searches more than double.

Interest in vaccines has continued to rise since, with searches unsurprisingly peaking during the first few months of the vaccine rollout.