Data Sharing and Open Source Software Help Combat Covid-19 | WIRED

Nextstrain is an open source application that tracks the evolution of viruses and bacteria, including Covid-19, Ebola, and lesser-known outbreaks such as Enterovirus D68 using data sourced largely from Gisaid. Hodcroft and other researchers involved with the project analyze the data shared on Gisaid for mutations and visualize the results. That’s how the team was able to spot the connection between the two Covid-19 cases in Washington. Nextstrain’s work is enabled by the widespread sharing of data by scientists and health professionals. Duncan MacCannell, the chief science officer for the Center for Disease Control's Office of Advanced Molecular Detection, says public health authorities, universities, and clinical laboratories are releasing genomic data from Covid-19 specimens at unprecedented speed—often within 48 hours of a specimen arriving at a sequencing laboratory.