Infectious disease researchers are using Facebook Inc mobile location data to provide daily updates to U.S. cities and states evaluating the effectiveness of social distancing orders aimed at slowing the novel coronavirus.
FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen placed on a keyboard in this illustration taken March 25, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Facebook and the researchers leading the project say they have overcome those concerns by aggregating the data several times over and funneling it through academics. The researchers share broad findings with state and local health departments, which do not receive any raw data. The Mobility Data Network has become one of the first initiatives to harness mobile data for the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, an approach deployed early in places like China, South Korea and much of Europe but scarcely used so far in the United States.
In New York, for example, researchers found mobility dropped significantly on the weekends but crept back up on weekdays, when many people - particularly those living in low-income neighborhoods - are still required to work. Smaller location tracking services including Cuebiq and Camber Systems are queued up to provide inputs to the research network, too.
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