Researchers from the University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a virtual “virus” that could be used to more accurately assess the spread of COVID-19. The joint project could also reduce the lag between the time people catch the virus and get diagnosed. The now dubbed Safe Blues program relies on Bluetooth technology to copy and transmit strands between mobile devices. The goal is to mimic the spread of the coronavirus infections in real-time.
The researches have stated: “Safe Blues offers a solution for real-time population-level estimates of an epidemic’s response to government directives and near-future projections. Safe Blues strands are safe virtual ‘virus-like’ tokens that respond to social-distancing directives similarly to the actual virus. However, they are spread using Bluetooth and are measured online. The relationship between strand counts and the progress of the actual epidemic can be determined using machine learning techniques applied to delayed measurements of the actual epidemic. This then allows real-time data on the Safe Blues tokens to be used for estimation of the epidemic’s current and near-future state.”
