How can scientists predict a COVID-19 outbreak? There’s an app for that

Medical Xpress May 6, 2021
Rachel Butch, Johns Hopkins University

A mobile app that uses crowd-sourced data on COVID-19 symptoms can accurately identify where local coronavirus outbreaks will appear, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists who developed the app.

The Johns Hopkins team launched the “COVID Control” app in May 2020 and have been studying how user-reported COVID-19 symptoms can predict potential outbreaks of the virus, enabling public health leaders to enact measures to contain the virus’ spread. Results of the researchers’ findings were published February 25, in Nature Scientific Reports.

“It’s a really promising example of how we can use public participation and the ubiquity of technology like cell phones to track disease,” says Robert Stevens, M.D., director of anesthesiology and critical care precision medicine at the Johns Hopkins...

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