HAVE YOU USED GOOGLE TO SEARCH FOR COLD SYMPTOMS, OR A HOME REMEDY? THEN YOU’VE UNWITTINGLY HELPED THE SEARCH GIANT TO PREDICT THE OUTBREAK OF FLU ON AN INTERNATIONAL SCALE.
You’re definitely going to get the flu this year.
Alright, sorry, maybe not definitely. But as the CDC is reporting, the flu season is off to an “early start,” and will likely be one of the worst in the past decade.
But how does the CDC predict such things? With cold, hard clinical evidence: the organization publishes a weekly FluView report based on the number of patients who have reported flu-like symptoms and the number of hospitalizations. But as CDC Director Thomas Frieden noted, the spread of the flu is fairly “unpredictable,” and FluView has a one- to two-week lag.
To read the full, original article click on this link: 1 | Infographic: Google's Flu Map Might Predict The Next Big Epidemic | Co.Design: business + innovation + design
