TY - JOUR
T1 - Early SNS-based monitoring system for the covid-19 outbreak in Japan
T2 - A population-level observational study
AU - Yoneoka, Daisuke
AU - Kawashima, Takayuki
AU - Tanoue, Yuta
AU - Nomura, Shuhei
AU - Ejima, Keisuke
AU - Shi, Shoi
AU - Eguchi, Akifumi
AU - Taniguchi, Toshibumi
AU - Sakamoto, Haruka
AU - Kunishima, Hiroyuki
AU - Gilmour, Stuart
AU - Nishiura, Hiroshi
AU - Miyata, Hiroaki
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: The present work was supported in part by a grant from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan (H29-Gantaisaku-ippan-009).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Daisuke Yoneoka et al.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Background: The World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) to be a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Large-scale monitoring for capturing the current epidemiological situation of COVID-19 in Japan would improve preparation for and prevention of a massive outbreak. Methods: A chatbot-based healthcare system named COOPERA (COvid-19: Operation for Personalized Empowerment to Render smart prevention And care seeking) was developed using the LINE app to evaluate the current Japanese epidemiological situation. LINE users could participate in the system either though a QR code page in the prefectures’ websites or a banner at the top of the LINE app screen. COOPERA asked participants questions regarding personal information, preventive actions, and non-specific symptoms related to COVID-19 and their duration. We calculated daily cross correlation functions between the reported number of infected cases confirmed using polymerase chain reaction and the symptom-positive group captured by COOPERA. Results: We analyzed 206,218 participants from three prefectures reported between March 5 and 30, 2020. The mean age of participants was 44.2 (standard deviation, 13.2) years. No symptoms were reported by 96.93% of participants, but there was a significantly positive correlation between the reported number of COVID-19 cases and self-reported fevers, suggesting that massive monitoring of fever might help to estimate the scale of the COVID-19 epidemic in real time. Conclusions: COOPERA is the first real-time system being used to monitor trends in COVID-19 in Japan and provides useful insights to assist political decisions to tackle the epidemic.
AB - Background: The World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) to be a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Large-scale monitoring for capturing the current epidemiological situation of COVID-19 in Japan would improve preparation for and prevention of a massive outbreak. Methods: A chatbot-based healthcare system named COOPERA (COvid-19: Operation for Personalized Empowerment to Render smart prevention And care seeking) was developed using the LINE app to evaluate the current Japanese epidemiological situation. LINE users could participate in the system either though a QR code page in the prefectures’ websites or a banner at the top of the LINE app screen. COOPERA asked participants questions regarding personal information, preventive actions, and non-specific symptoms related to COVID-19 and their duration. We calculated daily cross correlation functions between the reported number of infected cases confirmed using polymerase chain reaction and the symptom-positive group captured by COOPERA. Results: We analyzed 206,218 participants from three prefectures reported between March 5 and 30, 2020. The mean age of participants was 44.2 (standard deviation, 13.2) years. No symptoms were reported by 96.93% of participants, but there was a significantly positive correlation between the reported number of COVID-19 cases and self-reported fevers, suggesting that massive monitoring of fever might help to estimate the scale of the COVID-19 epidemic in real time. Conclusions: COOPERA is the first real-time system being used to monitor trends in COVID-19 in Japan and provides useful insights to assist political decisions to tackle the epidemic.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Japan
KW - Large-scale monitoring system
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85088778619&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85088778619&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2188/jea.JE20200150
DO - 10.2188/jea.JE20200150
M3 - Article
C2 - 32475884
AN - SCOPUS:85088778619
SN - 0917-5040
VL - 30
SP - 362
EP - 370
JO - Journal of Epidemiology
JF - Journal of Epidemiology
IS - 8
ER -