TORONTO -- Want to know how many people in your neighbourhood have taken a COVID-19 test? A new website tracking self-reported symptoms lets you find out 鈥 and contribute to the data yourself.
is an initiative created by epidemiologists and software developers from Harvard University, which maps out where cases of COVID-19 could be, based on data from users of the website.
The tool was recently expanded to include Canada after being launched in the U.S. in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And it was inspired not by the most recent pandemic, but by a fictional one depicted on the big screen.
John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston鈥檚 Children鈥檚 Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School, said that developers and researchers 鈥渟tarted on this journey about nine years ago.鈥
鈥淚t was actually around the movie 鈥楥ontagion,鈥 that we launched as part of that movie,鈥 he told 麻豆影视 Channel on Sunday. The 2011 film followed the spread of a fictitious pandemic.
Brownstein had already launched one website tracking infectious diseases worldwide 鈥 HealthMap, which was made in 2006.
But 鈥楥ontagion鈥 made Brownstein and other founders think more about the need to aggregate public health information on a scale that wouldn鈥檛 be possible by government-run testing.
鈥(It鈥檚) this idea that we can engage the public in public health by having people report their symptoms and tell us about illness in the community around data that we actually don鈥檛 have access to generally,鈥 Brownstein said.
鈥淢ost of the data we get is from people鈥檚 interactions with health care, but it doesn鈥檛 count the massive amount of mild illness in the community 鈥 and we know that鈥檚 actually true for COVID as well, huge amounts of people sick, but no testing available to know how many people are actually getting ill.鈥
This is where COVID Near You comes in. So what does the website do?
When you go to the COVID Near You homepage, you are asked a simple question: 鈥淗ow are you feeling?鈥
If you answer that you鈥檙e feeling good, you are prompted to offer information on whether you鈥檝e received a flu vaccine, your age, gender and the first three letters of your postal code.
Healthy individuals filling out the survey is 鈥渞eally important too,鈥 Brownstein said.
鈥淏ecause that gives us a denominator to really understand what the rates are in the community around illness.鈥
If you say that you鈥檝e been under the weather, you are asked to select your symptoms from a list. The list includes symptoms commonly associated with COVID-19, such as shortness of breath, cough and a fever, but also includes some symptoms that have been associated more rarely with the virus, such as diarrhea, or a rash.
After you select symptoms, a series of more detailed questions pop up, asking you when you started feeling ill, whether you鈥檝e been to see a doctor, how long you鈥檝e been quarantined, your travel history, and whether you believe you鈥檝e been in contact with someone infected with COVID-19.
Depending on how you answer, you may be prompted to offer whether you鈥檝e taken an official COVID-19 test or been hospitalized.
At the end, you will also be asked for demographic information and your partial postal code.
Your data will then join the data of thousands of other Canadians, and will be plotted on an interactive map that displays with coloured dots how many people have reported COVID-19 symptoms, and how many have reported taking a COVID-19 test within the past two weeks.
It also displays how many people have filled out the questionnaire on the website. As of May 1, around 433,550 people within Canada had put their information into the survey.
Want to see your neighbourhood in particular? Simply type the first three letters of your postal code into the search bar above the map, and the map will inform you how many people within that area have taken a test or reported symptoms, as well as how many people in that area had filled out the survey.
Brownstein said that they had collaborated with public health officials in Canada, as well as the University of Toronto, in order to make the Canadian version of the tool.
If this new tool sounds familiar, you may be thinking of a similar website created by Canadian university students in March to aggregate self-reported potential cases.
Flatten operates by the same principle as 鈥淐OVID Near You鈥 鈥 users fill out a survey to report symptoms and other relevant information, then offer the first three letters of their postal code so that a heat map can be made showing the data.
There are a few key differences. In addition to potential cases, Flatten maps where potentially vulnerable individuals are (such as those who are in their later years and/or are immunocompromised) as well as high-risk potential cases (vulnerable individuals with symptoms). COVID Near You maps potential cases, but also maps those who have reported taking a COVID-19 test.
And while Flatten is based only in Canada, COVID Near you also has pages for the U.S. and Mexico.
Although the sites have significant overlap, having more than one website tracking self-reported data potentially means that a greater number of individuals could be reached.
Brownstein explained that these type of tools 鈥渉elp (to) really understand what鈥檚 happening at the community level.
鈥淲hat we鈥檙e trying to do is arm public health officials with the right amount of data in real time about what鈥檚 happening, where we are with cases, how many people have been infected, what emerging hotspots are out there, is social distancing working,鈥 Brownstein said of COVID Near You.
鈥淯ltimately, this is a tool that could be helpful not only for COVID, but in future respiratory infectious diseases, which we know we鈥檒l have in the future as well.鈥
