Michigan Was Looking Up This Word During the Pandemic

Dictionary.com has seen a lot of action during the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously, a lot of words we've never heard of have been thrown around since it started and people went online to find out what they meant. The folks who run that website decided to break down the searches by state. And (IMO) Michigan came out looking smarter than the rest.

According to a story from the Riverfront Times in St. Louis, "COVID-19" topped the list in many states, with some of the others being "furlough," "disinfectant" and "asymptomatic".

In Michigan, the most searched for term was - "hydroxychloroquine". Which, of course, is a drug that got a lot of publicity early on, when it was thought to be something that could be used to battle COVID-19. It's usually used to treat malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. Recently, it's lost favor as a treatment for COVID-19.

One of the reasons the Riverfront Times latched onto this story was the fact that the most searched for COVID-19 related term in Missouri was "looting". I grew up in Missouri. I can't explain that one.

Here's the story.