Turn mobile data on: Your smartphone can predict coronavirus spread two weeks in advance

NEW YORK: Tracking the aggregated movements of people using their mobile phone data may help predict the geographical and temporal spread of COVID-19 infections up to two weeks ahead of time, according to a study.

The research, published in the journal Nature, analysed the distribution of population outflows from Wuhan, China, during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020.

According to the scientists, including Nicholas Christakis, from Yale University in the US, large-scale population movements can contribute to localised outbreaks of a disease becoming widespread epidemics.

In the study, they assessed anonymised mobile phone data from a major national carrier in China to analyse the movements of more than 11 million people who spent at least 2 hours in Wuhan between 1 and 24 January 2020, when the quarantine was imposed.