This Facebook map shows where Texas residents are most reporting COVID-19 symptoms
A new map released by Facebook shows which counties in Texas have the highest percentages of people reporting coronavirus symptoms.
No counties in the state landed in the highest category, based on an interactive map created by the tech giant.
According to data current through April 12, Smith and Gregg counties scored relatively high to the rest of the state with 1.92% of people reporting COVID-19 symptoms.
The data was generated from results of a voluntary survey — developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh — that appeared on Facebook and asked users if they were experiencing symptoms associated with COVID-19, including cough, fever, shortness of breath or loss of smell, CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote in The Washington Post.
The maps show data based on a calendar week and are expected to be updated daily. They are intended to help health officials determine where to send resources and decide when parts of the country can be reopened, McClatchy News reported.
As of April 20, Smith County has 121 reported cases of coronavirus and one death and Gregg has 55 reported cases, according to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services.
Meanwhile, Ector County also scored relatively high to the rest of the state with 1.72% of people reporting COVID-19 symptoms, according to the data. But it has 58 reported cases and four deaths.
In Harris County, 0.64% of people reported coronavirus symptoms, according to the Facebook data. It has 4,823 reported cases and 75 deaths.
Tarrant and Dallas counties scored relatively low to the rest of the state with 1.06% and 0.68% of people reporting symptoms, respectively, the map shows. Tarrant has 1,242 reported cases of coronavirus and 39 deaths, according to the state. Dallas County has 2,428 reported cases and 60 deaths.
In Travis County, 0.81% of people reported symptoms, the data show, but the county has 1,108 confirmed coronavirus cases and 25 deaths, according to the state.
“Overall, since experiencing symptoms is a precursor to going to the hospital or becoming more seriously ill, these maps could be an important tool for governments and public health officials to make decisions on how to allocate scarce resources like ventilators and PPE, and eventually when it’s safe to start re-opening society,” Zuckerberg said, according to Axios.
The Delphi research team at Carnegie Mellon released their findings Monday and said they received about 1 million responses weekly from Facebook users, according to a news release.
They took responses to the survey and combined them with other information including medical claims and testing to make estimates about disease activity that are more comprehensive than those made from positive coronavirus tests alone, the release said.
Using the survey along with other data, the Delphi team will monitor changes over time, which they say will help the forecast COVID-19 activity a number of weeks into the future, according to the release.
The White House has been leaning heavily on tech giants to help fight the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, executives from companies including Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft met with White House officials for nearly an hour to discuss how they could help tackle the spread of the virus, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Technology and Research Task Force has since turned its attention toward tasks such as determining how the coronavirus spreads to predicting available hospital beds.
Google made news last month after President Donald Trump claimed the company would launch a screening website for people who want to get tested for COVID-19, The Verge reported. Verily, Google’s sister company, did launch a site of that nature but only for people in the Bay Area, according to the outlet.
Google ultimately launched a coronavirus resource platform later that month.