Web Scraping and COVID-19
Web scraping can be used to help solve global issues like finding a vaccine for Covid-19, it has many other practical benefits for everyday usage. As Covid-19 has taken the world by surprise and led to events that would never before have been imaginable, there are ways we can use technology for good. The virus that started out as a small concern thousands of miles away has become an international pandemic over the period of just a few months. Because of this, the entire world has been bunkered down in anticipation that it will be taken care of.
While it is nice to think that the virus will just be wiped out overnight as scientists work tirelessly to get a vaccine, that doesn’t represent the full picture. Scientists are working hard to sequence the virus and are trying to discover how it works and spreads, but that task is not simple. Considering how many nations are trying to find the vaccine or even cure for this virus, the amount of data being gathered and collected every day is immeasurable.
Because of the amount of data that is being created every day, it is nearly impossible to actually put it all together to create an understandable timeline of research. However, the software that has been used to scrape websites for important consumer data and other information has been brought out into the spotlight for COVID-19 assistance.
With a few tweaks to the source code of many web scraping software applications, they can be used to gather COVID-19 information and culminate it into a more accessible format. For example, institutions like Johns Hopkins are using their software skills to look into all data about the virus in an effort to culminate it in a refined location. Whether there was a post on social media or a report released with promising vaccine updates, it is all taken into consideration in the big picture data collection they’re conducting.
When this software is used to scrape the web for any information regarding the virus, it can be used to get rid of information that is no longer relevant and bring essential resources to the foreground. Web scraping data can be used to help scientists across the world see what information came out months ago and what was just released this morning. By collaborating across international barriers through the use of data collecting software, web scraping can help save lives and help the world get through this pandemic together.
Originally published at https://finddatalab.com on June 10, 2020.
