A modern global tracking framework for COVID-19 has been established that can dynamically track not just where the virus is now but where it is traveling, how soon it will arrive, and if the pace it is accelerating.
The new tracking framework, the first to track the virus dynamically, is being rolled out in 195 countries. Individual U.S. states and urban regions, and Canadian provinces can now dynamically detect the virus.
"Now we can easily identify outbreaks at their beginning," said Lori Post, the lead investigator and director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "You want to know where the pandemic is accelerating, how fast it is moving and how that compares to prior weeks."
During the past four months, Post, James Oehmke of Northwestern, and Charles Moss of the University of Florida worked day and night to create a novel surveillance device focused on Oehmke's path-breaking study.
Northwestern University hosts a dashboard for the new COVID monitoring framework available to everyone through their latest and standard metrics.
Each country's dashboard will be tracked to notify policymakers across the globe through every U.S. embassy worldwide. Users would have the whole world's metrics at their fingertips.
The latest method and the first U.S. surveillance study will be released in the Journal of Medical Internet Science on Dec. 3.
The global control software analyzes the virus in the same manner as economics's world tests its growth and contraction.
The name of the project is GASSPP (GlobAl SARS-Co2 Surveillance Project), as reported by Laboratory News.
Current tracking does not recognize pandemic changes or signal a coming epidemic
Tracks the caseload in recent and accumulated fatalities and illnesses; however, current monitoring hasn't improved much in 50 years.
If there is a warning of an epidemic involving the acceleration of disease spread, they can not recognize significant improvements in the pandemic or sound the alarm.
The monitoring framework will help collaborating countries formulate and enforce policies that reduce COVID-19 or undesirable consequences such as food shortages through U.S. embassies and missions, and recognize through policies function better.
These modern indicators will also assist developing countries, and their health services in bracing for sudden pandemic shifts.
"For example, relative to other countries, the Netherlands is a small country and doesn't have the same caseload as some larger countries like Spain," Post said.
However, he noted that these countries have disturbing signs right now. These include increased speeds, acceleration and positive jerk and that means potential for explosive growth."
Speed isn't enough
Post said speed itself doesn't tell us enough. He said people should know the acceleration and how that compares weekly to prepare what's coming in the pandemic."
Jerk is an indicator of rising acceleration that will help forecast the burden on health care services that the pandemic will bring on. Oehmke said jerk could help turn a reactive policy response into an aggressive policy response. Jerk is a word for mechanics, Oehmke stated, since it's not familiar in public health's vocabulary until now.
Post explained that one should know what is going on now and what are likely scenarios soon. By looking at speed, acceleration, and jerk, he said experts can inform leaders where the outbreak occurs before it shows up in overcrowded hospitals and morgues.
Using state-of-the-art mathematical techniques, the framework often scans for missing results. Existing monitoring picks up extreme incidents, Post said, but those figures possibly constitute just 10 percent to 20 percent of the case load in the case of COVID.
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