Sniffle
After hearing about a few people catching some kind of cold, we wondered if something was going around. So we did a search for "sick" on Twitter and restricted it to tweets from within 25 miles of Albany. The result: there is some sniffling going on. Of course, this is terribly unscientific. But Google's got something going along these lines that's much, much more sophisticated -- it's tracking the spread of the flu by monitoring search volume.
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Comments
Glad I followed that Twitter link:
Astrogirl426: @nerdboner Dude, you're sick lol
Albany, NY 24 minutes ago
... said -S on Dec 5, 2008 at 3:53 PM | link
Yeah, the signal (such as it is) is surrounded by a certain amount, um, noise.
... said Greg on Dec 5, 2008 at 3:57 PM | link
i have been sooo sick this week! it's that time of year. today i left work at 8:30am because i was too sick to be there, went straight to newton medical on cenral ave, and waited - sitting in a chair- for FOUR HOURS..just to walk out with a prescription in hand!! 4 hours!!! ok, i've vented, i feel better...
... said Kim D. on Dec 5, 2008 at 3:59 PM | link
I stayed home today with a big box of Kleenex, but it didn't seem Twitter-worthy.
... said Naomi on Dec 5, 2008 at 4:44 PM | link