Using WeChat, a Chinese Social Media App, for Early Detection of the COVID-19 Outbreak in December 2019: Retrospective Study.

Wenjun Wang Yikai Wang Xin Zhang Xiaoli Jia Yaping Li Shuang-Suo Dang

Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth (2020)

By using retrospective infoveillance data from the WeChat Index, the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in December 2019 could have been detected about two weeks before the outbreak announcement. WeChat may offer a new approach for the early detection of disease outbreaks.

Keyphrases

social media
sars cov
health information
electronic health record
respiratory syndrome coronavirus
cross sectional
big data
gestational age
deep learning