Geospatial digital monitoring of COVID-19 cases at high spatiotemporal resolution
David De Ridder
José Sandoval
Nicolas Vuilleumier
Silvia Stringhini
Hervé Spechbach
Stéphane Joost
et al.
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Open AccessPublished:June 16, 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S2589-7500(20)30139-4
The novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has impacted our societies on an unprecedented scale. Worldwide, lockdowns and quarantines have been implemented to contain the spread of the virus, and are currently in place for more than 50% of the global population. These restrictive physical distancing measures raise many concerns regarding their adverse impact on our societies, economies, and health-care systems.
SARS-CoV-2 spreads via close contact during daily activities, forming clusters of cases mainly in households and workplaces. A crucial challenge to contain the spread lies in the early detection of these outbreak clusters, and the localisation and isolation of infected people. Modern geospatial tools leveraging the precise location of residence of patients with COVID-19 are key digital instruments that have great potential from a prevention perspective.1 These methods, by allowing early identification of clusters and monitoring of local spread of disease across space and time,2 can support strategies that dynamically inform epidemiologists and decision makers, to ultimately enable targeted interventions at a local scale.
