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Friday, February 12, 2021

Predicting COVID Spikes

Hmm, caution with such causal seeming predictions.   But interesting.    

Google Search Can Help Predict Covid-19 Spikes   The Jerusalem Post, Zachary Keyser, February 8, 2021

Researchers from the U.K.'s University College of London (UCL) and Israel's Bar-Ilan University have found that spikes in Covid-19 cases could be predicted an average of 17 days in advance using online search data. The researchers developed an analytical model that compares Covid-19 symptom-related Google searches against spikes in Covid-19 cases. Symptoms identified by the U.K.'s National Health Service and Public Health England are used by the model and weighted according to how frequently they occurred in confirmed Covid-19 cases. UCL's Vasileios Lampos said, "We have shown that our approach works on different countries irrespective of cultural, socioeconomic, and climate differences. Our analysis was also among the first to find an association between Covid-19 incidence and searches about the symptoms of loss of sense of smell and skin rash."  ... ' 

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