Covid Near Me: Estimates how many people are really infected in your state.

Most websites you go to for data on COVID-19 will show you a dashboard of “active” cases, the number of people who have been tested and currently have COVID-19. But because of the median 5-day incubation period (the period between exposure to the infection and the appearance of the first symptoms), the number of active cases gives us a rough indication of how many people were infected 5 days ago. Due to this virus spreading so quickly, this number does a poor job of letting us know how many people could potentially be infected right now (and could be spreading the virus before they show symptoms). The New York Times article below explains how Columbia University researchers estimate that there are 11 times more cases than have been reported. The Covid Near Me website aims to give an estimation at how many people are currently infected in your state based on 1) the incubation period and 2) what we know about how quickly the virus has spread so far. We can use this to project how many confirmed cases we’ll see in 5 days, indicating to us how many people actually have the virus right now. https://www.nytimes.com/interact...