Active syndromic surveillance of COVID-19 in Israel

© 2021. The Author(s)..

Syndromic surveillance systems monitor disease indicators to detect emergence of diseases and track their progression. Here, we report on a rapidly deployed active syndromic surveillance system for tracking COVID-19 in Israel. The system was a novel combination of active and passive components: Ads were shown to people searching for COVID-19 symptoms on the Google search engine. Those who clicked on the ads were referred to a chat bot which helped them decide whether they needed urgent medical care. Through its conversion optimization mechanism, the ad system was guided to focus on those people who required such care. Over 6 months, the ads were shown approximately 214,000 times and clicked on 12,000 times, and 722 people were informed they needed urgent care. Click rates on ads and the fraction of people deemed to require urgent care were correlated with the hospitalization rate ([Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], respectively) with a lead time of 9 days. Males and younger people were more likely to use the system, and younger people were more likely to be determined to require urgent care (slope: [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text]). Thus, the system can assist in predicting case numbers and hospital load at a significant lead time and, simultaneously, help people determine if they need medical care.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2021

Erschienen:

2021

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:11

Enthalten in:

Scientific reports - 11(2021), 1 vom: 27. Dez., Seite 24449

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Yom-Tov, Elad [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Journal Article

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 05.01.2022

Date Revised 08.11.2023

published: Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1038/s41598-021-03977-3

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM334976375