Digital disease surveillance: Tracking a pandemic

Social media posts and online searches may offer vital clues about the spread of influenza — and now Covid-19. But they also risk errors and threaten privacy.

By Katherine Ellison

This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine on March 27. Knowable Magazine is an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews, a nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society. Sign up forKnowable Magazine’s newsletter.