Background: The technological advancements of the 21^st century have allowed human beings the ability to access more information than ever before, but this comes with benefits and consequences. While epidemiologists are able to predict outbreaks of infectious disease before physicians, the average person is bombarded with limitless information from several sources, credible and not.

Methods: Google search data was pulled and the keywords ‘Corona beer’ were compared to ‘Corona virus,’ ‘Wuhan virus,’ and other related terms and trends were analyzed in the United States and Worldwide. Based off of keywords, a relative popularity score was calculated based off the ratio of the query’s search volume to the total number of searchers. These values were scaled proportionally so that the maximum value was 100. Articles from popular news sources during this timeframe will also be grouped and assessed before, during, and after a trend spike.

Results: Preliminary results indicate that a huge spike in search data occurred between January 19-February 1, 2020 with increasing popularity of all keywords. Corona beer exhibited a popularity score of 3 (up from <1 the past 12 months), and Corona virus exhibited a popularity score of 100 (up from <1 the past 12 months).

Conclusions: Preliminary analyses show that widespread panic about the Wuhan Corona Virus during inception have led people to search the disease more frequently, with differing results. Going forward, it will be vital to understand how the average person behaves in response to media in the wake of an epidemic.