Fighting Coronavirus: How Can Data Save Lives? | 4

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2020

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Where are new cases being detected? How many beds are available in local hospitals? What’s the growth rate of ICU admissions? These are some of the most urgent questions in the world right now, and they’re being answered by data pioneers like Dr. John Brownstein, the Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Brownstein talks to host Steven Johnson about his new crowdsourced website, CovidNearYou.org, and how public health data doesn’t just track deaths, but helps prevent them.

New episodes of “Fighting Coronavirus” will publish here every Tuesday, or you can listen and subscribe at https://wondery.com/shows/fighting-coronavirus/

Contribute to Dr. John Brownstein’s live map of Covid-19 symptoms at https://covidnearyou.org/.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to American Innovations,
0:03.6	Add Free on Amazon Music, download the app today.
0:07.0	From Wondery, I'm Stephen Johnson, and this is Fighting Coronavirus.
0:30.0	One of the many strange things about our lives in the COVID-19 pandemic is that there are
0:45.8	two very different front lines against the disease right now.
0:50.5	One is the physical front line of first responders and healthcare professionals, but the other
0:55.4	key front line keeping us safe right now is all about data.
1:00.0	Where are new cases being detected?
1:02.5	How many beds are available in local hospitals?
1:05.5	What's the growth rate of ICU admissions?
1:08.6	These are some of the most urgent questions in the world right now, and they're being
1:12.4	answered by a whole system of public health data collection and analysis that in normal
1:17.9	times none of us pay any attention to.
1:21.2	Some of those systems have been around for a while.
1:24.1	In the late 1830s, the city of London started keeping detailed reports of deaths, including
1:29.3	cause of death, address, age, and other crucial data points.
1:33.8	Since then, organizations like the WHO and the CDC, not to mention technologies like the
1:39.2	Internet and cell phones, have created truly global records of life and death that scientists
1:45.4	and health officials can draw upon.
1:47.7	The COVID-19 epidemic for all the suffering it's caused has led to a big leap forward
1:53.6	in how we use data.
1:55.4	Over the past couple of months, we've seen innovative new forms of data collection that
	...

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