Carnegie Mellon's COVIDcast site displays real-time data on pandemic in the U.S.

Carnegie Mellon University unveiled five interactive maps last week on their COVIDcast site, which provides real-time covid-19 indicators across the United States.

The maps display real-time data on symptoms, doctor visits, medical tests and browser searches related to covid-19 in the U.S., including estimated disease activity at the county level.

“Our multidisciplinary team of researchers has worked tirelessly to bring together a variety of data sources to support informed decision-making throughout our global society,” said CMU President Farnam Jahanian in a statement.

The data powering the maps were developed with the help of partners including Google, Facebook, Quidel Corp. and an unnamed national health system. It is updated daily.

COVIDcast was created by CMU’s Delphi Research Group and its Covid-19 Response Team, which includes faculty, staff and students. The university has presented several tech and data tools to further understanding of the pandemic, including a contact-tracing app and a Facebook survey (the responses to which contributed to the COVIDcast maps). Gov. Tom Wolf is also using a CMU-created data dashboard to make decisions about how to reopen the state.

With COVIDcast, the group plans to forecast disease activity. According to a news release, these forecasts will provide up to four weeks of advance warning to hospitals in any given locale. The forecasts promise to provide guidance to government and health care officials.

Google Health Trends is providing data to estimate how often people in a given location search Google for topics related to covid-19. A national health system is giving statistics on patient visits to doctors and telemedicine visits; and Quidel Corp., a medical test maker, is providing statistics on influenza tests — which are are routinely ordered for people as a means of excluding the flu as a diagnosis. Thus, requests for flu tests are indicators of possible covid-19 activity.

“All of these signals are just rough indicators of covid-19,” Roni Rosenfeld, co-leader of the Delphi group and head of CMU’s Machine Learning Department, said in a statement. “Any one data source may not be conclusive, but if multiple sources indicate the same thing, people can have greater confidence about what is happening or will soon happen in various locales.”

Several additional data sources are expected to be added in the coming weeks.

“This is not the finish line for us — it’s just the beginning,” Ryan Tibshirani, co-leader of the Delphi group, said in a statement.