I'm not really sure just what it is exactly that draws me towards epidemiology. I always hated math in school, but for some reason really enjoyed statistics and probablity. I really like the detective game it involves as well. How does one little factor affect the overall health levels of a population?
As a result, I've been following the flu this year pretty closely. In the past, I'd used what I thought was an absolutely fantastic tool called Google Flu Trends. I loved it. I thought it was great. You could literally watch the spread of the flu throughout the States every year, and give your best guesses as to where it was gonna really hit next.
Sadly though, Google Flu Trends died. It was guesswork, really. Google was just tracking the number of times people searched words relating to the flu, and used that to give an estimate in real time of current infection rate.
They ended up being off by by 140% in 2013, and quitely shut down.
I was probably more let down by it than I should have been.
But that's what led me to the CDC Flu Map, which is even better. It's not based on search engine results, but on actual numbers instead. I highly recommend checking it out, and keeping mental tabs on it for next flu season.
According to FluView, another fantastic CDC resource, we seem to be seeing slightly less cases of flu right now (that could change with all the snow on the East Coast at the moment), but both of these resources can help you to stay on top of what's happening flu-wise in your area.
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