The Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the
COVID-19 vaccine on December 11, 2020 has been met with hesitancy for uptake with some citing potential impacts on future fertility. We hypothesised that irrespective of sex, fertility-related queries would markedly increase during the 48 days following EUA of the coronavirus
vaccine. We sought to objectively identify trends in internet search queries on public concerns regarding
COVID-19 vaccine side effects on fertility that might impact
vaccine uptake. We used Google Trends to investigate queries in Google's Search Engine relating to the coronavirus
vaccine and fertility between 10/24/2020 and 1/27/2021. The five most queried terms were identified as: 'COVID
Vaccine Fertility', 'COVID
Vaccine and
Infertility', 'COVID
Vaccine Infertility', 'COVID
Vaccine Fertility CDC', and '
COVID 19 Vaccine Infertility' with an increase of 710.47%, 207.56%, 264.35%, 2,943.7%, and 529.26%, respectively, all p < .001. This study indicates that there was an increase in online
COVID-19 vaccine-related queries regarding fertility side effects coinciding with the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) on December 11, 2020. Our results objectively evidence the increased concern regarding the
vaccine and likely demonstrate a major cause for hesitancy in
vaccine uptake. Future studies and counselling with patients should be undertaken to help mitigate these concerns.