Community venue exposure risk estimator for the COVID-19 pandemic

Ziheng Sun (George Mason University) and team proposed a new index based on birthday paradox algorithm and venue traffic data to act as an alternative to contact tracing. Experiments on the data of the past months has proven that the score successfully warns early signs of outbreaks in COVID hot spots like Navajo Nation, New York, Georgia and Louisiana. Spatial correlation analysis shows the proposed score has significant positive relationship with new cases in next two weeks, and the correlation becomes stronger in the reopening stage.