Positive Effect of COVID-19

The strong insecurity of the population and the threatening disaster by COVID-19 has at least one positive effect!
The interest in BOINC and in projects investigating proteins for a cure against COVID-19 has increased significantly!

Google Trends for BOINC

This can be seen in the increased Google search queries to BOINC. These show a strong increase compared to the rest of the year.

source

It is interesting to note that China has recorded the strongest increase. However, as China was very strongly affected by the virus, this can be easily explained.
That the increase is undoubtedly related to the virus can be seen if you analyze the breakout keywords. These either have something directly to do with the coronavirus or with the Folding@Home project, which studies coronavirus proteins.

source

Google Trends for Gridcoin

Gridcoin is a cryptocurrency that rewards you if you donate your computing power for BOINC projects.
This computing power then examines proteins of the COVID-19 virus, for example, and thus helps to develop a drug faster. So Gridcoin tries to encourage people to participate in BOINC. Unfortunately, Gridcoin has not (yet) been able to benefit from the increased interest to the same extent as the analysis by Google Trends shows.

What the hell are you talking about?

If you have never heard of BOINC or Gridcoin, look here to find out how you too can support research in this crisis: introduction to BOINC, introduction to Gridcoin.