Faced with an unprecedented health crisis, an equally unprecedented partnership. To fight against the coronavirus, French researchers from the University of Paris Sciences et Lettres have joined forces with other institutes such as the National Research Institute for Digital Science and Technology (Inria) and Inserm and are working on from data provided by ... the American giant Facebook, in order to better anticipate the future.
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"Understanding how the epidemic can spread across the country"
This unprecedented partnership between the American firm and public research is no coincidence: with 37 million users in France, the social network database is a gold mine for researchers. Facebook has thus aggregated and anonymized the movement data taken from our phones, during various confinements and then deconfinement. The researchers then cross them with those of hospital admissions.
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"These data help us to understand how the epidemic can spread over the territory, depending on how people have moved," says Olga Mula, lecturer in applied mathematics at Paris-Dauphine University. "The methodology that is being developed could be applicable for a second peak, possibly, but also for other epidemics."
"More precise monitoring of population flows"
And if this research could prove decisive for better anticipating future health crises, it is in particular thanks to data from the social network, assures Laurent Massoulié, research director at Inria. "Without going as far as knowing exactly where each person is, we have a monitoring of population flows which is more precise than what we have been able to do in the past," he explains.
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Only problem: there is so much data that it took time to process it. The research group therefore hopes to publish its first results in the coming weeks.