With 427% jump in search, Covid-19 blocked out other queries: Yahoo report

Before the lockdown, navigational searches for ‘WhatsApp web’ and ‘YouTube’ were the most searched tools for communication, after the lockdown searches for ‘Zoom’, ‘Skype’, ‘Google Hangouts’, ‘Microsoft Teams’ and ‘GoToMeeting’ took over.

A month into the lockdown, search queries for coronavirus-related matters saw a whopping jump of 427%, a report by search engine Yahoo revealed.

Among the searches that people were looking for related to coronavirus, ‘lockdown in India’, ‘vaccine for coronavirus’, ‘social distancing’ and ‘Hydroxychloroquine’ were some of the top searches, the report reveals. (GETTY IMAGES/ ISTOCK PHOTO.)

The ‘Search in the Lockdown’ report reveals that while search terms for news events such as ‘Delhi election results,’ ‘Delhi riots’ and ‘JNU violence’ were top trends, through the lockdown, novel Coronavirus-related searches such as ‘COVID-19 updates’, ‘symptoms of COVID-19’, ‘COVID-19 treatment’, ‘COVID-19 death toll’ and ‘Live COVID-19 tracker’ were what people were looking for online.

Among the searches that people were looking for related to coronavirus, ‘lockdown in India’, ‘vaccine for coronavirus’, ‘social distancing’ and ‘Hydroxychloroquine’ were some of the top searches, the report reveals.

While before the lockdown, navigational searches for ‘WhatsApp web’ and ‘YouTube’ were the most searched tools for communication, after the lockdown searches for ‘Zoom’, ‘Skype’, ‘Google Hangouts’, ‘Microsoft Teams’ and ‘GoToMeeting’ took over.

Ramayana overtook Big Boss, Drive, Tanhaji, Housefull 4 and Good Newwz as their top entertainment searches, soon after the government announced that the mythological series will be telecast during the lockdown on state-run Doordarshan TV. Several requests for more mythological programs to be brought back for people at home during the quarantine were registered. Pandemic movie Contagion also jumped to the top five in India.