JMIRxMed JMIRx Med JMIRx Med 2563-6316 JMIR Publications Toronto, Canada v3i2e38724 27929103 10.2196/38724 Peer-Review Report Peer-Review Report Peer Review of “Google Trends as a Predictive Tool for COVID-19 Vaccinations in Italy: Retrospective Infodemiological Analysis” Meinert Edward Shah Zubair 1 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7389-3274 College of Science and Engineering Hamad Bin Khalifa University Ar-Rayyan Qatar Apr-Jun 2022 19 4 2022 3 2 e38724 13 4 2022 13 4 2022 ©Zubair Shah. Originally published in JMIRx Med (https://med.jmirx.org), 19.04.2022. 2022

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 https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/35356 https://med.jmirx.org/2022/2/e38695/ https://med.jmirx.org/2022/2/e35356/ COVID-19 epidemiology Google Trends infodemiology infoveillance Italy public health SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations vaccines social media analysis social media

This is a peer-review report submitted for the paper “Google Trends as a Predictive Tool for COVID-19 Vaccinations in Italy: Retrospective Infodemiological Analysis.”

Round 1 Review General Comments

The paper [1] uses Google Trends (GT) to identify correlations between search queries and vaccinations. GT has been used previously by others for similar and other problems. The paper is well written. The Methods section can be improved. The Results section has a good explanation.

 Specific Comments Major Comments

The novelty of the paper is limited.

The Introduction is short and can be extended to include more relevant studies.

The Methods section needs more details. For instance, how GT works, especially when keywords are two words “vaccine reservation.” Does it search for all queries that include both words vaccine and reservation or vaccine OR reservation, or does it search for an exact match (“vaccine reservation”)? More search terms can be included, such as synonyms of reservation like an appointment or booking. Additionally, how was data normalized? What is lag week?

 Abbreviations GT

Google Trends

None declared.

 Rovetta A Google Trends as a predictive tool for COVID-19 vaccinations in Italy: a retrospective infodemiological analysis JMIRx Med 2022 3 2 e35356