COVID-19 results in 50 per cent surge for prayer

In March 2020, the share of Google searches for prayer surged to the highest level ever recorded, surpassing all other major events that otherwise call for prayer, such as Christmas, Easter and Ramadan, shows Jeanet Bentzen's study:

“When WHO declared the Covid-19 a pandemic, search-shares for prayer rose around mid-March for most regions, even for the most secular regions of Northern Europe,”

Jeanet, who led the research, found that the level of prayer searches in March 2020 was more than 50 per cent higher than the average during February 2020.

Using daily data on Google searches for prayer across 95 countries with free and unrestricted access to the internet,Jeanet found that the increase in the number of inquiries for ‘coronavirus prayer’ was a global phenomenon.

Read the the research paper In Crisis, We Pray: Religiosity and the COVID-19 Pandemic and read also "Pandemic prompts surge in interest in prayer, Google data show" in The Telegraph, May 22, 2020