Artificial Intelligence is Helping Doctors Track the Coronavirus

Coronavirus fears are spreading, but it's opening up options for disruptive technology to show its stuff in the wake of the outbreak. A team in Boston Children's Hospital is implementing machine learning to sift through copious amounts of online news, including social posts, news reports, data from official public health channels and information supplied by doctors to track the coronavirus. "There's incredible data that's locked away in various tools like online news sites, social media, crowdsourcing, data sources, that you wouldn't think of that would be used for public health," said Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital. "But actually they have incredible amounts of information that you wouldn't find in any sort of traditional government system." "Whether it's social media, online news reports, blogs, chat rooms -- we're looking for clues about symptoms, reports of disease, that tell us something unique is happening," said Brownstein.