“I had runny nose, sore throat for sure, a little coughing, of course there was a fever,” Karan Walia (10) said.

A human doctor might associate this with influenza, but could Google?

Google has created a program to predict influenza cases called Google Flu, which collects data of user searches during the flu season and uses the frequency of certain search terms to approximate the number of influenza cases.

Google Flu works by using both past and current data. Through checking the prevalence of certain search terms and comparing them to the CDC’s records of influenza infections, Google can supposedly identify these certain undisclosed search terms as indicators of flu activity.

These terms can then be tracked immediately by Google to create a rough estimate of flu cases before the CDC conducts a formal survey. Results are regionalized by state and country, allowing specific regions to receive more specific and helpful estimates.

Google claims that their data is congruent to the CDC’s reports.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most flu infections occur during the winter, although cases can appear as early as October and as late as May.

Sravya Cherukuri (10) fends off flu-like symptoms nearly every year, often google searching her symptoms and turning to websites such as WebMD for a diagnosis.

“So when I [have] a flu, early in the morning I [wake] up with a sore throat. I usually go through three phases of a sore throat then it goes into congestion and [finally a] cough,” Sravya said.

Chetana Kalidindi (10) echoes a similar sentiment.

“When I am infected with the flu, my temperature rises and my head begins to pulse,” she said. “I google [my symptoms] to ensure that I do indeed have to flu and not another illness for which I would be taking the wrong medication.”

So far, Google Flu’s predictions have been widely attacked in the media due to far-fetched and overshot estimates.

According a study referenced by The New York Times, four scientists found that “Google’s flu-tracking service not only wildly overestimated the number of flu cases in the United States in the 2012-13 flu season […] but has also consistently overshot in the last few years. Google Flu Trends’ estimate for the 2011-2012 flu season was more than 50 percent higher than the cases reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Google has since reprogrammed its algorithm, but even so, it notes on the Flu Trends website that “past performance is no guarantee of future results”.

Some students have voiced skepticism regarding the accuracy of Google’s predictions.

“I think it’s a bit of stretch,” Rishab Gargeya (10) said. “Considering the amount of people who use Google, they could get some pretty good sample data from that, but I don’t think it’s anything prominent enough to get a good conclusion from.

Influenza can be prevented simply by getting a vaccination. “I’ve never had influenza [because] I take my flu shots,” Rishabh Chandra (11) said.

As of November 17th, Google Flu estimates the flu activity for California to be “low,” and experimental data

Although Google Flu has had a rough debut, the technology used in it could be refined to potentially prevent thousands of influenza-related deaths, it could be expanded upon to encompass other diseases. Google has already applied the technology to dengue.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on November 21, 2014.