[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] The Japanese government is launching a survey on the actual status of COVID-19 infections in Japan using the free messaging application 'Line'.
On the 31st, NHK reported that Line, a Japanese subsidiary of Naver, signed an information provision agreement with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and will conduct the first survey over two days starting from that day, targeting Line app users to collect health information related to COVID-19.
Line has 83 million users, which corresponds to 65% of the entire population of Japan.
The survey method involves sending messages to all Line users asking whether they have symptoms such as a fever of 37.5 degrees Celsius or higher, sore throat, or cough.
If COVID-19 suspected symptoms are present, additional questions are asked about when the symptoms began and whether the user has traveled abroad within the past two weeks.
Line collects information such as respondents' gender, age, and residential area, then processes the data statistically in a form that does not identify personal information and provides it to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Line added that the collected data will be immediately destroyed after the analysis of the results.
To increase the reliability of the survey results, Line plans to conduct a second survey on April 5.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and Line expect that this survey will help understand the actual status of COVID-19 infections in Japan.
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