Facebook Offers Opt-In Coronavirus Symptom Survey to U.S. Users

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook is offering an opt-in coronavirus symptom survey to U.S. users. It will be shared with Carnegie Mellon University researchers to “provide an early indicator of where the outbreak is growing.”

“We recently started showing the Facebook community in the United States an opt-in symptom survey run by health researchers at Carnegie Mellon University,” he said. The CEO mentioned that the survey asked people for symptoms associated to COVID-19. These symptoms include “fevers, coughing, shortness of breath or loss of smell,” he then said. The survey can also help “forecast how many cases hospitals will see in the days ahead,” he then stated. It will “provide an early indicator” as to where the outbreak happened and where the curve has successfully flattened. Zuckerberg on The Washington Post then said that they send the results directly to researches. He also emphasized that the results are not available online.

Zuckerberg pointed out that the world has faced pandemics before. He mentioned that we have a “new superpower”: “the ability to gather and share data for good.”

“If we use it responsibly, I’m optimistic that data can help the world respond to this health crisis and get us started on the road to recovery,” he added.

The CEO shared that he has always believed that helping people come together will help address our greatest challenges. Zuckerberg stated that this is “not just by sharing our experiences and supporting each other in crises but also by working together at scale to solve problems.”

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