JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

In the prevention and control of infectious diseases, the previous research work on the application of big data technology has mainly focused on the early monitoring and early warning of infectious diseases. In the context of the prevalence of COVID-19, the application of big data technology for COVID-19 monitoring and early warning is still an important task, but prevention of the rapid spread of COVID-19 and reducing its impact on society is currently the most important application of big data technology in the COVID-19 world. After the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, the Chinese government and non-governmental organizations actively tried to use big data technology to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19. This article summarizes the data collection methods and key data information that existed in China before the outbreak of COVID-19, and how these data contributed to the prevention and control of COVID-19. Second, we discuss China's new added data collection methods and data information after the outbreak of COVID-19. On the basis of the increased data collected, China's experience in applying big data technology for personnel tracking, epidemic surveillance and early warning, tracing of virus sources, drug screening, medical treatment, resource allocation, and production recovery are detailed. The data used includes location and travel data, medical and health data, news media data, government data, online consumption data, data collected by intelligent equipment, and epidemic prevention material data. We also analyzed the issues, challenges and responses encountered by China in the application of big data technology from four perspectives: data access, data utilization, data sharing and data protection. Suggestions for improvements are made for data collection, data circulation, data innovation, and data security, to help understand China’s response to the epidemic, and to provide lessons for other countries’ prevention and control of COVID-19.