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How Google Can Get the Flu Right
An anonymous reader writes Google Flu Trends was developed in 2009 to improve forecasts of flu levels in the U.S. by utilising Google search data. This early example showcased the potential which lies in the exploitation of human digital traces which all of us leave behind by using online services. The rise of Google Flu Trends was only stopped when the service dramatically overestimated the number of flu incidences recently. The fall raised questions about the value of online data for predictions in general. However, a study published yesterday demonstrates that it is not only about data but also about the adaptiveness of algorithms used for predictions. Scientists combined historic flu levels as reported by the CDC with Google Flu Trends data using an algorithmic framework which is able to adapt to changes in human search behaviour. Their results show that Google Flu Trends data sets significantly add information to the forecasts of current flu levels.
...to come with a good anti-virus joke.
There are 2 types of people in the world - those who understand decimal and those who don't.
we will see if this works next fall
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This is a very indirect way to measure and thus predict flu outbreaks. There are many things that could prompt people to search for and otherwise discuss the flu, beyond a person or their family actually having the flu. All it would take is a few major news sources to make mention of the flu, and there's a good chance there would be a surge in people searching for terms related to the flu. Further, other illnesses could be going around that have some flu-like symptoms which would also increase search results for the flu. Can't we just get this information from healthcare providers or insurance companies directly? (although the latter is probably charging an arm and leg for that information)
Better known as 318230.
Perhaps, but if you don't get the flu shot, you're not only a higher risk of catching the flu, you're at a higher risk of transmitting it (by virtue of being a higher risk of catching it). Especially if you're a hero-worker who heroically goes in spread your mucous around.
Most of the flu hysteria I've seen has been more anti-vaccine than anti-flu.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
250,000-500,000 people a year die from the flu, more than 50,000 in the US (that's more than both traffic accidents and gun deaths combined). It's not something to fuck around with.
It's sweet that you think the people giving you a hard time about the flu shot care about you. Sorry to burst your bubble, but nobody cares about you. They care about your elderly neighbor or the kid a few seats away on the bus, or the coworker with the pregnant wife. And you can and will give it to them before you even know you have it, so it's not a question of "well *I'm* not the problem" - yes, everybody without a flu shot is potentially the problem, because they can get the flu and infect others before there's any hope of avoiding it. Before there was an effective vaccine that was cheap and easily available, the flu was just something that happened - but now that there's something to do about it, choosing not to do it is a pretty dickish move.
The flu is scary. Lots of people think Ebola is scary - sure, the flu has a lower case-mortality rate, but it's compensated for by how easy it is to spread, so overall even if we pretend this Ebola outbreak is typical, the flu is still like 100x more deadly worldwide, and something like 50,000x more deadly if we just look at the US. The 1918 flu killed 50-100 million people - that's 3-5% of humans who were alive at the time, disproportionately affecting healthy young and middle-aged adults. It killed 10x as many Americans as did World War 1. Sure, sanitation and treatment weren't what they are now, but if you get the flu, you can't do much more than supportive therapy. If that flu happened today, the death toll would undoubtedly be lower than it was, but most people would still know someone who'd been killed that year by the flu. That is, without a vaccine.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
The other problem I have with the AC's post is that he describes a bad cold, not a case of the flue, which lasts at least 72 hours...
Per the CDC you're infectious a day before the symptoms hit, and remain infectious for 5-7 days after that.
So if you really have the flue, you should stay home a couple days longer even if you're feeling better after 3...
I don't read AC A human right
As far as I'm concerned.
You're often sick for a week, pretty commonly you get a secondary bacterial infection (like pneumonia or a sinus infection), and then you're sick for more than a week, and you might well be left with a lingering cough.
And BTW, "throw up a couple times" is NOT that common a flu symptom, though it CAN happen with flu. Typical symptoms are:
body aches
fever/chills
coughing
runny nose, sore throat, headach, pain around eyes
Vomiting/diarrhea is more common amongst children.
--PM
3 estimated guesses, actually, based on the flus most likely to be seen in North America. The flu is a rapidly-changing and complicated virus - all the more reason to reduce its chances of mutating back into something really dangerous, eh?
... blah blah blah stupid thiomersal conspiracy ...
Oh. You're not careless, you're just an idiot. Carry on - just stay away from, you know, people.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
You do realize that the flu killed more people in the 1900's than all the explosives, bullets and other tools of war combined, right?
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Or what was it again. Is google going to guess the length of the nose of the emperor of China next, based on search items? And has it got the flu? Look , that there's a good correlation is clear, but the reliability of the results is very low. Next the NSA will be using those tools in order to find out how much they can get away with. Or wait, they already made their minds up about that.
250,000-500,000 people a year die from the flu, more than 50,000 in the US (that's more than both traffic accidents and gun deaths combined). It's not something to fuck around with.
There are many different viruses and bacteria (including Ebola) that have flu-like symptoms and based on the summary of methodology for these CDC numbers I don't believe the CDC is doing enough regular randomized testing with controls to determine how many of those flu deaths are actually "the flu" or something else with "flu-like symptoms".
There should be two types of randomized testing. First general monitoring, where the CDC pays doctors to perform blind tests on patients with certain symptoms. The tests need to be blind because testing for a specific disease will bias the results... meaning doctors will see it as a test of their diagnostic skills to get it right if you hand them a test for the flu or something else specific. Rather what we should be after is a sense of what percentage of people showing up with a cough of any kind or other symptoms have certain viruses or bacteria. Just a blind test with a direction, give to someone with a cough of any severity. Or give to someone with a fever, headache etc.
The other thing would be for people who are in hospital or who die and had any flu-like symptoms to receive such randomized testing in order to gather enough data to get a specific breakdown on the cause of death beyond just flu-like symptoms. Otherwise if you just did the randomized testing of people showing up to the doctor's office and not those who are seriously ill or die, then you would mistakenly project the percentage of deaths as the percentages of illnesses circulating at the time, when we really want to know which of the viruses and bacteria are contributing to more deaths.
That's probably not the influenza virus you're describing, Most people with the real flu are sick for a week plus.