How is it possible that a private company could spot the coronavirus 2019-nCov and announce it before the World Health Organization made an announcement? Really it is about the use of technology, specifically artificial intelligence (AI) to scan reams and reams of digital information and connect the dots. Maybe that is why the company is called
BlueDot One of their specialties is
infectious disease outbreaks [Note: There are a number companies using the name BlueDot.]
See this article on how they picked up on the disease,
How a Canadian company spotted the coronavirus outbreak before health officials.
Tom Cox, a Canadian and Incident Command System (ICS) instructor, shared the link above. He pointed to three specific interesting things in the article:
1) Early detection — increasing the speed of detection
2) Use of big data — mining vast quantities of data to find the gems
3) Comment about the increasing number of outbreaks in the last 20 years — another thing for emergency managers to be aware of.
Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.
