National Fever Data Suggests Stay-At-Home Is Working

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A recently developed technology to map the daily fevers of Americans across the country is providing new, intriguing evidence that stay-at-home orders are helping stem new coronavirus infections nationwide.

Data uploaded from the cellphones of more than a million Americans shows significant drops in new fevers and in fever levels, a key indicator of the coronavirus, coinciding almost to the hour with the imposition of stay-at-home orders across the county.

The data is combined into a map, with blue showing a downward trend in fever across the nation. In Sonoma County, the data show fevers dropping about 12 percent in the last week alone. Click here to open the interactive fever map.

For public health officials, it has been difficult to determine if, and to what extent, stay-at-home orders are helping. But this technology, already in use to track influenza in recent years, is giving the first, real-time evidence that strict social distancing and other restrictions are paying off.

This does not mean additional cases are not occurring, or a surge will not take place in the near term. It does strongly indicate however that a trend downward in infections is occurring, and visible in real-time data.

The data is being uploaded from internet-connected thermometers produced by Kinsa Health, which first published a national map of fever levels on March 22, and was able to spot the downward trend within a day. The company altered its software to detect spikes of “atypical fever”, the type that correlates with the coronavirus and does not match historical flu patterns.

Since that time, data being released from the health departments of New York and Washington states, two of the hardest-hit areas, has supported the fever map in showing that social distancing is likely saving lives.

The data, once uploaded, is added to a national database to create a fever map of the county. In past uses, the fever map has accurately tracked and predicted influenza trends, often 2-3 weeks before similar findings from the CDC.