[wlug] TIL: Shiny Apps

Came across this article <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-what-nz-flu-data-is-revealing-about-coronavirus/C5YEYUFU7GDDUKC5QDEA4TXO2Q/> about improving the accuracy of tracking Covid-19 rates by looking at self-reporting data on general flu-like symptoms. By careful analysis, they can estimate numbers of Covid-19 cases versus influenza cases, and tell if dropping reported case numbers are actually a result of dropping infections, versus lower rates of testing. The software they developed is called a “Shiny app”. Digging a bit further, I discovered that “Shiny” <https://shiny.rstudio.com/> is a framework for building web-based apps in the R statistical-analysis language.