Google is tracking the flu. The google.org: Flu Trends website claims that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. "Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional flu surveillance systems." In a nutshell, the theory is that people who have the flu symptoms will use google to search for flu-related information. Google says that "[a]cross each of the nine surveillance regions of the United States, we were able to accurately estimate current flu levels one to two weeks faster than published CDC reports." This is an interesting application of Google Trends.
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