The biggest change last week was a 20% drop in engagements. This happened even as the number of Covid-19 articles went up by 1%, reaching their highest level since the end of May. This tells us that while publishers are putting out more coronavirus content, people aren’t as interested as they’ve previously been.

This week didn’t see any single big story, which may have contributed to this downturn in engagement. The most engaged with articles covered a range of stories, including Covid-19 parties, mask mandates, new outbreaks, but nothing dominated the most popular articles like we’ve seen previously..

Looking at the online Covid-19 discussion, last week saw a drop of 5% – the first fall in a few weeks. This could show people are losing interest in discussing the virus again as countries attempt to move past lockdowns and people try to claw some normality back into their lives.

Search data also suggests that’s the case. Here’s how search interest around vacations, movie theaters, and bars has looked since the beginning of the year.

While none of the topics have fully returned to normal levels (although ‘bar’ searches are nearly there), we can see interest has been gradually rising since the virus spread around the world. Vacations have seen a particularly big jump in the last week as some travel restrictions eased and more people looked to take a well-earned break.

But there are obviously still concerns. Search interest may be up, but people are still wary. A Jun 22 – 29 Brandwatch Qriously survey of 7,555 adults from Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the USA showed that only 22% of respondents said they’d feel comfortable visiting a bar.

This may explain why interest in a Covid-19 vaccine is rising. Here’s data on how many mentions a vaccine has been getting, and Google searches around the topic.

While interest isn’t as high as it has been previously, it’s clearly growing steadily. This makes sense as people pine to get back out and enjoy themselves, and a vaccine would mean they could do so safely.

While hundreds of vaccines are being worked on, and some are at the human trial stage, we’re still some time away from one being mass produced and distributed (if this ever happens at all). In the meantime, people will have to make do with the safety measures on offer.

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Brandwatch Response Team