COVID-19 and Twitter: What was communicated? What was not? Looking at trends on internet searches between January and May 2020, we can see that only a bunch of people knew about COVID-19 in February 2020. Most of us only became aware of it in March, when the number of cases started growing exponentially in countries such as Italy or Spain. In Italy for instance, media interest in coronavirus was extremely high around 24 February 2020. Similar levels of attention were reached in Spain, France and Germany around 9 March 2020.