4 ms·

Here's a link to the original announcement: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2023/p0922-disease-modeling.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2023/p0922-d

Here's a link to the original announcement: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2023/p0922-disease-modeling.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2023/p0922-disease-modeli... > While some entities monitor factors like viruses detected in waste water, others scoop up data from health insurance companies, healthcare providers, local health departments, and some even gather data from individual search histories, personal communications, social media posts, and health records. I don't see any mention of waste water monitoring in either the announcement or on the CDC's details page, though I assume that would be part of any national disease monitoring program. I also don't see any mention of the CDC monitoring your personal communications and search histories, and I assume that would NOT be part of any national disease monitoring program. This whole article feels like FUD about a (in my opinion) much-needed and valuable federal program.

ceejayoz 3y ago
> I also don't see any mention of the CDC monitoring your personal communications and search histories, and I assume that would NOT be part of any national disease monitoring program. I suspect it's referring to fairly mundane things like Google Trends, which has already been used (fairly unsuccessfully) to monitor flu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Flu_Trends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Flu_Trends Or reviews for Yankee Candles on Amazon: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/17/1129542486/what-yankee-candle-reviews-can-tell-us-about-covid https://www.npr.org/2022/10/17/1129542486/what-yankee-candle...
wardedVibe 3y ago
As someone involved, yes, wastewater is included, though its a trickier data source to work with than people make it out to be. health insurance claims are the newest source I'm most excited for, though they're hard to work with for privacy reasons. The sibling speculating about google search trends is right. Though we also did facebook surveys for a while. A lot of effort is put into making sure nothing that's possibly identifiable is present, so characterizing this as about tracking people is... pretty dumb.
- nradov 3y ago
  Health insurance claims lag behind encounters by varying amounts of time, sometimes days to weeks. So, they aren't necessarily a great way to monitor rapidly emerging public health issues. But certainly better than nothing.

ceejayoz 3y ago

> I also don't see any mention of the CDC monitoring your personal communications and search histories, and I assume that would NOT be part of any national disease monitoring program. I suspect it's referring to fairly mundane things like Google Trends, which has already been used (fairly unsuccessfully) to monitor flu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Flu_Trends https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Flu_Trends Or reviews for Yankee Candles on Amazon: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/17/1129542486/what-yankee-candle-reviews-can-tell-us-about-covid https://www.npr.org/2022/10/17/1129542486/what-yankee-candle...

wardedVibe 3y ago

As someone involved, yes, wastewater is included, though its a trickier data source to work with than people make it out to be. health insurance claims are the newest source I'm most excited for, though they're hard to work with for privacy reasons. The sibling speculating about google search trends is right. Though we also did facebook surveys for a while. A lot of effort is put into making sure nothing that's possibly identifiable is present, so characterizing this as about tracking people is... pretty dumb.

nradov 3y ago
Health insurance claims lag behind encounters by varying amounts of time, sometimes days to weeks. So, they aren't necessarily a great way to monitor rapidly emerging public health issues. But certainly better than nothing.