Coronavirus, without a doubt, has been one of the most important issues in the world during these past weeks. This virus, which started in the Wuhan market, has come to other countries, such as the United States, Philippines or Spain. To see its worldwide progress, Google Maps has a real-time map showing all the countries already affected by the coronavirus.
Perhaps this spread would have been less if the cell had been used as proposed by an exciting study published in Nature and conducted by MIT and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. According to investigators from both centers, smartphones can be had the most important role in predicting and preventing the epidemic in the world, with a key that resides in location data.
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Studies say mobile phones can prevent epidemics worldwide
"Exploring the link between human movement and mosquito-borne diseases in urban areas" It is the name of a study published by MIT and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in November 2019. At every research point, there is one called "Mobile phone data", which shows that The configuration information for these devices allows tracking spread of dengue, a virus transmitted by mosquitoes.
Analyzing the telephone data of 2.3 million people in Singapore over a two-month period in 2011, the authors have given citizens two “favorite” places: home and work. In addition, reading the telephone schedule (whether it was during business hours, nights, weekends, etc.), they were able to differentiate between work and home environments.
That way they came across a model of mass movement, which they did simulation with the aim of knowing how many cases were infected dengue would have received that motion model. We must emphasize that the virus is not transmitted to humans, but is transmitted by mosquitoes, who may become ill if they bite a person with dengue.
After performing this simulation, the researchers compared the results with the data obtained during the actual outbreak of dengue in Singapore. Therefore, they found that the motion model obtained by the call centers and text messages was more like the actual dengue stream
Mobile data will be used to know how users are moving around the city
Thus, this study suggests that analyzing the demographic data of residents' mobile phones is a good way to know how they are moving around the city and, in this way, to know how outbreaks can spread. not only nationally, but also globally.
"Authorities can identify which urban areas are most at risk of infection", explains Daniel Kondor, an MIT researcher, in addition to raising awareness among citizens to help with security. All this mobile data download will be done respecting the privacy of people,
And, as the study concludes, walking through the city is a key element in the spread of germs, and analyzing the mobility of citizens through their calls will be the key to knowing how these processes are being implemented and using that information to prevent expansion.
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