On Monday we reported how thousands of young Americans laughed off warnings to self-isolate and partied on Florida beaches anyway for spring break – with several now testing positive for COVID-19.
The poster child for these selfish ‘covidiots’ – who will statistically survive coronavirus – was a spring breaker from Ohio, Bradley Sluder – told CBS News: “If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I’m not gonna let it stop me from partying,” adding “We’re just out here having a good time. Whatever happens, happens.”
“If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying”: Spring breakers are still flocking to Miami, despite coronavirus warnings. https://t.co/KoYKI8zNDH pic.twitter.com/rfPfea1LrC
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 18, 2020
In case you were wondering how far these spring break ‘covidiots’ traveled for their ill-advised debauchery data visualization company Tectonix used cell phone location data collected by company X-Mode to map out the travels of thousands of spring breakers, using special geo-spatial big-data analysis software.
The data – provided by cell phone companies in near real-time, was anonymized.
Watch:
This shows the location data of phones that were on a Florida beach during Spring Break. It then shows where those phones traveled.
First thing you should note is the importance of social distancing. The second is how much data your phone gives off. pic.twitter.com/iokUX3qjeB
— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) March 26, 2020
Amazing.
They turned Lucius Fox's supercomputer from the Dark Knight into real tech. My god.
— Shane Rider 🇺🇸 (@shaneriderMA) March 26, 2020
This kind of data is obviously incredibly useful and has a wide-range of applications. But while the data used is "anonymized," meaning it is not linked to the phone's owner, researchers have found that it is incredibly easy to link the two. https://t.co/UmMej1ZKui
— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) March 26, 2020
Humanity is not sending its best.
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