"New Coronavirus to Soon Arrive in Seoul, Taiwan, Tokyo, and More"
Reported by Media in 65 Countries Worldwide
Data Collected on Livestock, Animals, Pests, and Air Travel
Collected Data Reviewed by Humans → Confirmed from Epidemiologists' Scientific Perspective
Amid the spreading fear of the novel coronavirus infection known as 'Wuhan Pneumonia,' on the 28th, passengers arriving from China lined up at the screening area in the Gimhae Airport arrival hall in Gangseo-gu, Busan, to undergo fever checks. Gimhae Airport is conducting a three-step quarantine process for passengers arriving from China: temperature measurement at the aircraft gate entrance, fever monitoring at a fixed quarantine station, and additional investigation by epidemiologists for symptomatic individuals. [Image source=Yonhap News]
[Asia Economy Reporter Shinwon Yoon] It has been revealed that a Canadian startup warned of the risks through artificial intelligence (AI) about a month before the novel coronavirus (Wuhan pneumonia) began to spread in earnest.
According to the US IT specialized media Wired on the 28th (local time), the Canadian AI-based health monitoring platform 'BlueDot' warned about the 'risk of novel coronavirus spread' on December 31 last year.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) officially warned about the disease spread about ten days later, on January 6 and 9, respectively.
BlueDot is a platform that collects and analyzes data from 65 countries worldwide, including media reports, livestock and animals, pests, air travel, and real-time climate, then informs customers in advance about the possibility of disease infection and risk areas.
The collected data is rechecked by humans and then verified from a scientific perspective by epidemiologists.
Kamran Khan, founder and CEO of BlueDot, explained, "Outside China, timely information is not being obtained," and added, "We collect information in real time through news, rumors, blogs, and other sources that may indicate an outbreak." However, social networking services (SNS) are excluded due to the abundance of unreliable information.
BlueDot also predicted that Wuhan pneumonia could spread to Seoul through air travel data. In a report released last year, BlueDot forecasted that "the novel coronavirus will soon land in Bangkok, Seoul, Taiwan, Tokyo, and other locations."
Khan founded BlueDot after experiencing SARS in 2003. At that time, working as an infectious disease specialist at a hospital in Toronto, Canada, Khan sought ways to track viruses and started BlueDot to track viruses using AI.
BlueDot also predicted the possibility of disease spread in advance during the Ebola virus outbreak in 2014 and the Zika virus outbreak in 2016.
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