[wardedVibe]

As someone involved, yes, wastewater is included, though its a trickier data source to work with than people make it out to be. health insurance claims are the newest source I'm most excited for, though they're hard to work with for privacy reasons.

The sibling speculating about google search trends is right. Though we also did facebook surveys for a while. A lot of effort is put into making sure nothing that's possibly identifiable is present, so characterizing this as about tracking people is... pretty dumb.

[nradov]

Health insurance claims lag behind encounters by varying amounts of time, sometimes days to weeks. So, they aren't necessarily a great way to monitor rapidly emerging public health issues. But certainly better than nothing.