Can the CDC use Twitter, AI and Google to forecast flu outbreaks?
Epidemiological forecasting, much like weather forecasting, may be able to bring together volumes of data – from retail sales of flu medications, to Google searches about flu symptoms, to tweets about symptoms or how someone might be feeling – to create a picture in near real-time that predicts the best possible picture of the spread of the virus. If it’s successful, predicting the spread of disease will be as commonplace as predicting rain or snow.