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Seminar 5 June 2020 3pm


Social media analysis and COVID-19

 Date: 5 June 2020, Friday

Time: 3 pm

Speaker: Dr Lewis Mitchell (University of Adelaide) 

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced a number of areas where mathematical modelling and data science might make important contributions to the public health response. Concurrently, it has led to a unique improvement in the number of datasets (some anonymised, some not) being provided by typically-ungenerous tech companies to researchers to potentially assist with this response. This talk will explore how we are utilising a few of these datasets coming from the large social media platforms to attack COVID-related problems, including:
  • Measuring social distancing and predicting risk using Facebook data
  • Quantifying the ‘arc’ of patient experience of COVID-19 using Reddit
  • Contact tracing: tracking public sentiment towards the COVIDSafe app using Twitter, and modelling app effectiveness