On Monday, researchers revealed a coronavirus heat map powered by Facebook data. It aims to track the disease spread and the plan for reopening society.
As per a university, The Carnegie Mellon University project gives the real-time evidence of COVID-19 activity, and it was earlier not available from any other sources.
The surveys happened in which Facebook and Google users give some answers. So. the map was developed with those millions of responses. It is made to monitor the spread of the virus.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook chief executive, said that right now, the heat map is available for the United States. The University of Maryland research teams will help this map to expand around the world.
Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page and in Washington Post that the world is fighting with the is fighting COVID-19, and some countries are making plans to reopen their societies. It is tough to understand how the virus is spreading.
He further added that there are billions of people globally. And Facebook can help in different ways by helping the researchers and health authorities by giving them the information they need.
The researchers of Carnegie Mellon said they are getting around one million responses every week from Facebook users. And also get around 600,000 from Google users.
The research team said that they would use this and other unique data sources. The CMU researchers will also monitor the changes from time to time.
Researchers will have the information that they got from the Facebook surveys about the symptoms that people are experiencing, the data which is controlled by the university team, and those which are not shared with the social network.
The scientists also depend on unidentified data from Google and other partners on symptoms and search queries.
Zuckerberg said that in the survey, they asked people do they have symptoms like fever, coughing, shortness of breath, or loss of smell. As these, all symptoms are related to COVID-19.
He further said that if a person will experience these symptoms, then he is ill. The survey will also help to know how many cases came in hospitals in recent days. It will also help to know that from where the outbreak is growing and where the virus is decreasing.
Leave a Reply