US company attempts to map coronavirus spread using smart thermometers

"We don't know that it's COVID-19, we just know that its anomalous levels of influenza-like illness. It could be a resurgence of flu," Dalziel said, according to CNET.

By ZACHARY KEYSER
Air travelers walk, after further cases of coronavirus were confirmed in New York, in Terminal 1 at JFK International Airport in New York (photo credit: REUTERS)
Air travelers walk, after further cases of coronavirus were confirmed in New York, in Terminal 1 at JFK International Airport in New York
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Kinsa, a San-Francisco based health technology company, is attempting to use data collected from their patented smart thermometers to track the spread of the coronavirus across the United States.
The company is currently sharing its US Health Weather Map with the public, which has been used by health officials in the past to track the seasonal flu and the developers worked with infectious-disease-dynamics specialist Benjamin Dalziel from Oregon State University to create the map - who has been studying flu transmission in order to predict viral spreads in his own work.
"We don't know that it's COVID-19, we just know that its anomalous levels of influenza-like illness. It could be a resurgence of flu," Dalziel said, according to CNET.
The map itself, uses an application Kinsa devised to anonymously collect data from millions of their smart thermometer users - plotting unusual spikes in fevers around the United States as the data comes in. The darker the color is on the map, the larger the spike in fevers are in that location.
Kinsa has been clear to note that the map is not directly reporting COVID-19 infections, but instead using the disease's number one indicator to attempt to track the coronavirus spread. The company has claimed, however, that they have notices "a very strong correlation between cumulative atypical illness incidence and positive COVID-19 tests" by state.
"We hope this map serves as a guidepost for public health first-responders," Kinsa spokerperson Nita Nehru said, according to CNET. "If we see something unusual, such as an unexpectedly high level of illness, investigation needs to be done, and it needs to be done now so that we have the best shot at society's limited resources being put to their best use."
Inder Singh, founder and CEO of Kinsa, stated that the map and its data has not been independently verified, however, the company decided not to wait for the go ahead and instead put out the map this week.
"We felt it was a moral imperative to get the data out there as soon as possible," Singh said, according to ABC News. "It should be guiding and helping people to direct resources to where they're most needed."
The data collected has the possibility to worry many users about privacy issues, with many possibly wondering how the data is collected and what is visible to the public. However, Singh assures that the GPS information is only as specific as the zip code and that "it's not even possible to reverse engineer that data and get to a person's information."
Kinsa is currently welcoming scientists and health professionals to scrutinize their map and data in the hopes they can fine tune it to match the spread of COVID-19.
The company has sent over one million smart thermometers to users all across the United States and continues to distribute them at a rate of 10,000 per day They eventually hope to work with state and local governments in order to improve the accuracy of the map by adding more data into the equation.