Google searches for "corona beer virus" and "beer virus" jump amid coronavirus outbreak
Worldwide interest in the coronavirus has spiked in recent days, and so has worldwide interest in Corona beer. Google searches for "corona beer virus," "beer virus" and "beer coronavirus" spiked globally over the past week.
The coronavirus and Corona beer, however, are not at all related.
The coronavirus is a deadly new strain of virus that originated in China. It has infected thousands of people and left more than 100 dead.
Corona, a beer produced in Mexico, isn't connected to the virus or its outbreak in any way.
In the U.S., interest in "corona beer virus," "beer virus" and "beer coronavirus" surged the most in Nevada, Arizona and Connecticut. Worldwide, people in Portugal, Poland and Cambodia searched the three terms more than anywhere else, according to Google.
Searches for Corona beer also started spiking on January 20, when reports of the coronavirus first started circulating.
Cases of the virus have been reported in 16 countries, and a handful of cases have been confirmed in the United States. Health officials believe the virus was initially transmitted from animals to humans, and that human-to-human transmission of the flu-like illness is now occurring.
Symptoms include fever, cough and shortness of breath, according to the CDC.
While this particular strain of virus is new, coronaviruses in general are not — they are large group of viruses that can cause illnesses as minor as a cold, or as serious as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), according to the World Health Organization. The health agency of the United Nations said there are multiple known coronaviruses circulating in animals that have not yet been transmitted to humans.