Stanford scientists' computer model predicts COVID-19 spread in cities
A computer model using cellphone data to map the places people frequent every day in large cities may indicate that most COVID-19 infections occur at “superspreader” sites such as full-service restaurants, gyms and cafes. The report, published Tuesday in the journal Nature, examined the data of 98 million Americans collected at 10 large U.S. cities, including San Francisco, for two months beginning in March. The data was then fed into an epidemiological model developed by a Stanford University-led team. Jure Leskovec, the Stanford computer scientist who led the study, told Stanford News that the model analyzed how people of different demographic backgrounds and neighborhoods visited establishments that are more or less crowded. “Based on all of this, we could predict the likelihood of new infections occurring at any given place or time,” he said. Those predictions would later prove accurate based on the number of infections officially recorded by the cities. The scientists used d...
