Crowdsourcing of COVID-19 Symptoms Map in Ecuadorians

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador significantly affected the city of Guayaquil. The rapid spread of the coronavirus and limited processing of COVID-19 tests made it difficult to collect data and report on the progress of the outbreak in Ecuador. This study presents a crowdsourcing initiative to complement data collection efforts that inform the progress of contagion in Ecuador. A digital form was used to record symptoms associated with COVID-19 and positive cases of SARS-CoV-2. The location of participants led to the creation of a dynamic, public-access map viewer, and due to the incidence of cases, a dashboard was developed to observe in real time the sectors most vulnerable to contagion. In total, 1,450 participants took part in the initiative. The areas with the highest prevalence of COVID-19-associated symptoms were La Aurora and La Puntilla, both within the Guayaquil metropolitan area.

Key Contributions

• Designed and deployed a crowdsourced digital symptom-reporting form to complement official COVID-19 surveillance in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
• Generated a dynamic, publicly accessible geolocated map viewer to visualize symptom clusters in near real time.
• Developed a dashboard identifying the sectors most vulnerable to contagion, pinpointing La Aurora and La Puntilla as highest-prevalence areas.
• Collected and analyzed data from 1,450 participants, demonstrating the feasibility of citizen-driven surveillance under constrained testing capacity.

Recommended citation: Ching-Ávalos, S., Jaramillo-Lindao, Y., Velastegui-Montoya, A., Encalada, L., Chang-Silva, R., & Mosquera-Romero, M. (2021). "Crowdsourcing of COVID-19 Symptoms Map in Ecuadorians." Proceedings of the 19th LACCEI International Multi-Conference for Engineering, Education and Technology, Virtual, July 19–23, 2021. Full Paper #124. https://doi.org/10.18687/laccei2021.1.1.124