Caroline O. Buckee, Satchit Balsari, Jennifer Chan, Mercè Crosas, Francesca Dominici, Urs Gasser, Yonatan H. Grad, Bryan Grenfell, M. Elizabeth Halloran, Moritz U. G. Kraemer, Marc Lipsitch, C. Jessica E. Metcalf, Lauren Ancel Meyers, T. Alex Perkins, Mauricio Santillana, Samuel V. Scarpino, Cecile Viboud, Amy Wesolowski, Andrew Schroeder
Science
March 23, 2020
ABSTRACT
As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic worsens, understanding the effectiveness of public messaging and large-scale social distancing interventions is critical. The research and public health response communities can and should use population mobility data collected by private companies, with appropriate legal, organizational, and computational safeguards in place. When aggregated, these data can help refine interventions by providing near real-time information about changes in patterns of human movement.