10 Things We All Searched A Lot On Google Because Of 2020

For a lot of reasons, 2020 is a year none of us will ever forget. Whether it¡¯s due to the SARS CoV-2 pandemic, the Australian Bushfires, the Beirut explosion or the massive ¡®Black Lives Matter¡¯ protests that took place in the US -- a lot went wrong this year.

But we also searched for a lot of new things on Google, responding to events that made the headlines and impacted our lives.

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And as we bid goodbye to 2020, Google has shared with us some keywords and phrases that were the most searched in India this year, and in fact, most searched for the first time ever because of events in 2020.

1) Coronavirus

This is a true no-brainer. From the first time we heard of the outbreak of SARS CoV-2 in China to see the number of cases surging all over the world, "Coronavirus" was one term we never stopped searching.

2) Lockdown

Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the lockdown to prevent the spreading of the novel coronavirus in India, for the three months we¡¯ve experienced the lockdown, people were looking up news reports (just to keep themselves updated or verify fake news on WhatsApp) hoping to find a date to put an end to the ordeal and help them bring their lives back to normal.

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3) Quarantine

Even though quarantine is a term that¡¯s not normally used most often, that obviously changed with COVID-19 pandemic. People who were commuting during the initial phases of the unlock were all looking up information on quarantine, or people who were experiencing symptoms and were worried what the quarantine life would be like, quarantine was what they looked up for.

4) Hand sanitizer

When the novel coronavirus transitioned our lives into a new normal, two things became the most important -- face masks and hand sanitizers.

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In the initial phase of the pandemic, both these commodities were sold at exorbitant prices, over their MRPs, with limited stocks everywhere, making people search the web, to find at least one bottle to keep them safe.

5) Pandemic

The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020, declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic -- a term that was last used for the Ebola and the Zika virus during 2015-2016. But with COVID-19 spreading far more intensely, it¡¯s not surprising that ¡®pandemic¡¯ was one of the most searched keywords this year.

6) Hydroxychloroquine

With COVID-19 cases continuing to pile up and no vaccine or medication near to help them control the spread, doctors were looking at other medicines that could work help reduce the intensity of the novel coronavirus in patients. One medicine that showed some promise initially was HCQ or Hydroxychloroquine -- essentially a malaria drug that was showing good results in some patients. But eventually, the drug was seen to not work as consistently as doctors intended with some even reporting adverse side effects and its use for SARS CoV-2 was eventually phased out.

7) Locust swarms

While India and the world were busy dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, several parts of northern India saw millions of locust swarms create nuisance and ruckus in areas like Rajasthan, Haryana and even Delhi while giving us all major heebie-jeebies.

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8) Nepotism

On June 14, we saw the demise of Sushant Singh Rajput that really shocked the entire nation. However, people on social media were not at all convinced with the conditions of his death with many sharing several conspiracy theories along the way. This also led to a massive uproar against nepotism with movie trailers of star kids being bombarded with dislikes.

9) Orthohantavirus

While the world was barely trying to keep up with the novel coronavirus, Orthohantavirus or Hantavirus cases started to emerge in China, giving the whole world a panic attack. In case you didn¡¯t know, Orthohantavirus is a family of viruses that originate from rodents or rats. But after looking it up, people took a sigh of relief when they found out that it¡¯s not as easy to spread as SARS CoV-2.

10) Dexamethasone

Another drug that showed some effectiveness in helping patients with extreme cases of COVID-19 was Dexamethasone -- a low-dose steroid drug that helps in reducing inflammation in severe cases of the novel coronavirus.

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This drug was a part of the Recovery Trial that¡¯s testing existing treatments to see their efficacy against the novel coronavirus.

How many of these keywords did you search for? Tell us in the comments below.