Facebook and Carnegie Mellon University have released an interactive map that predicts the latest COVID-19 infection outbreak every day. It shows the estimated number of infected people by county in the United States, and Facebook will soon aggregate and display data from countries other than the United States.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the aim is to make the map an indicator of where health authorities should allocate materials such as personal protective equipment. This service (Facebook & Carnegie Mellon University COVID-19 Symptom Map), created by Facebook and Carnegie Mellon University’s Delphi Research Center, has been targeted by more than 1 million Facebook users by Carnegie Mellon University. It is based on the data that investigated the number of people with suspected symptoms of Corona 19. In addition, user survey information can be viewed anonymously only by researchers. Facebook only refers to aggregate information.
Map data is collected through Facebook’s huge network and data collection tools. Maps categorized as infected by county provide easy-to-see areas where hotspots may occur and can help determine restrictions on going out from state to state.
With 2 billion Facebook users worldwide, Mark Zuckerberg says the information it collects will be useful for researchers to fundamentally investigate unpleasant infections. The data is basically updated through a daily survey, and it says that the target will expand globally in days to weeks. He added that he believes the ability to quickly provide such aggregate information to governments and health authorities is one of the important tools that technology companies have.
He also explained that it is also recruiting research partners from around the world who will help gain knowledge about new corona 19 countermeasures through Facebook’s infection map data. Related information can be found here .