Facebook to start rolling out COVID-19 symptoms tracking maps globally

Facebook on Monday said that it will start rolling out COVID-19 symptoms tracking maps globally later this week. Facebook has tied up with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Delphi Research Centre to conduct the survey.

As per a post on Facebook’s forum, the university made public the initial results of their US symptom survey that the social media platform had promoted.

Facebook said using aggregate data from Carnegie Mellon it has produced its first report and new interactive maps, which it plans to update daily throughout the outbreak.

In an article in The Washington Post, Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote about how surveys like this can be an important tool in fighting the novel coronavirus.

According to Zuckerberg, getting accurate county-by-county data from across the US is quite a challenge. He added that with a community of billions across the globe, Facebook can actually help researchers and health authorities with the information they seek to respond to the outbreak and formulate a recovery plan.

As per the Carnegie Mellon University, the US symptom survey called COVIDcast displays signals related to coronavirus activity levels across the country from a variety of anonymised, aggregated data sources.

Each signal reflects the prevalence of COVID-19 infection, mild symptoms or more severe disease. It can be used to alert public health officials to investigate locations where COVID-19 activity seems to be rising, support in informed decision making, monitor changes and provide useful inputs to Carnegie Mellon’s pandemic forecasting system.

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