Rt.live value from Instagram founders
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the Instagram founders, have made a partnership to start their first product as a group after leaving Facebook mothership. Rt.live is now an updated tracker that indicates how fast the virus is transmitting in every state.
This Rt will measure the average number of people who have been infected by another person. If the value is higher than 1, then it will indicate that the virus is racing through the population faster. If the value is less than 1, then it indicates that the infection is reducing. For instance, Rt.live shows that the Georgia has the highest and most severe Rt score, which is 1.5. On the other hand, the value has fallen to 0.54 indicating that the rate of infection is now reducing.
Story and efforts behind it
Krieger has said that Kevin had been publishing and writing open-source data analysis notebook on how to determine Rt regularly. They had wanted to take the work and visualize that so anybody could see how the state was doing with the transmission. Meanwhile Krieger had been pitching in by making SaveOurFaces, which is a directory of the local Bay Area restaurants. These restaurants were selling gift cards so that the buyers can keep them floating during this quarantine.
Rt.live reveals that the California and Texas have the value less than 1, while Vermont has the lowest score, which is 0.33. This chart will tell how Georgia and Washington are fighting with COVID-19. One can easily examine the modeling system of this Rt.live on GitHub.
Krieger also said that since the states decided whether to reopen the country or kept it shut down, the model would help them to observe the infection rate carefully. This model would also help the people to realize the importance of staying home, and also it will help to determine where it would be safe to reopen the country.