ISSS608 2017-18 T1 Assign GONG QIANG

Origin and Epidemic Spread

Identify approximately where the outbreak started on the map (ground zero location). Outline the affected area. Explain how you arrived at your conclusion. (Please limit your answer to six images and 500 words.)

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The first ourbreak looks to have happend in Downtown area on May 18. The affect area was from Downtown to Eastside as per the hourly trend.

Analysis: First of all,by filtering key word : flu|soar|sneez|fever|cough in Text, then sort by blog time (Created_at,converted to Date type), I've managed to narrow down all blogs only to those flu-relevant blogs.

Then load the sorted & filtered data into Tableau,and plot them by day, I can see almost every day people mention flu,fever etc.,but only from May 18, the total amount soared significantly comparing to previous days, after 8am it even hit 123 records which is evidently unusual.(See attached image : GongQiang_Image_1)

As such,I determine the first outbreak happens in May 18.

Moreover,by plotting all blogs into the map per latitude,longitude, put a time animation there to check hour by hour on May 18, I can see outbreak burst in Downtown area then moved to Eastside.