Facebook has officially launched an interactive map that reports symptoms of COVID-19, offering users county-by-couty data from all across the country.
The social media giant released its first maps today to help track the spread of the virus. The data is self-reported based on symptoms and does not indicate individuals testing positive for the virus.
Via a post on Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the platform is “uniquely suited” to run these surveys because it serves a community of billions of people and can therefore carry out statistically accurate sampling.
Zuckerberg hopes the maps will help local governments and public health officials better understand where to allocate resources and, eventually, when it’s safe to start reopening different places.
As mentioned earlier, the data will be obtained via Facebook surveys in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University and will be updated throughout the outbreak. The media giant also says it plans to roll out symptom surveys globally in the coming days, in order to create similar symptom maps for other countries where Facebook operates.
Facebook joins Apple and Google in the support of Coronavirus-tackling efforts. Apple and Google have both started working on a smartphone-based contract tracing system. Facebook is still in the process of working on three new tools— co-location maps, movement range trends and a social connectedness index — to help officials better understand the spread of the virus.
Google and Facebook announced earlier this month that they would team up to share health data and trace contacts of people testing positive for the coronavirus. The partnership between the two rivals relies on creating technology that is operable on both iOS and Android platforms.
The initial symptom survey results are available at https://covid-survey.dataforgood.fb.com/. Check it out!
PHOTOS: Getty Images and Facebook