In areas where schools, restaurants and bars remain closed due to the coronavirus, Kinsa’s county-level illness data suggests fevers in those locations have dropped. Kinsa CEO Inder Singh joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman and Akiko Fujita to discuss.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: But meantime, we want to bring you the updates that we got here in New York over the weekend when it comes to the spread of coronavirus cases within the state. Governor Andrew Cuomo offering a little glimpse of hope here, when we think about plateaus and what could happen in the following weeks as people stay home to prevent the spread of more cases.

Of course, New York leads the nation with the most cases on a state-by-state basis, with over 122,000 positive cases. But they did report a decrease in terms of coronavirus deaths on a daily basis for the first time in a while. And we'll continue to track those numbers as we move forward.

But for more on this, it's not just the state-level tests that we've been getting in terms of trying to track where COVID-19 is moving. There's also been data provided by a company that has smart thermometers. It has been leading some of the coverage here when we think about what hot zones might be the ones worth watching as we move forward. That company is Kinsa. And we are joined by the CEO of Kinsa. Inder Singh joins us on the Google Hangout now.

INDER SINGH: And Inder, when we look at this, your guys' data tracks where you're seeing temperatures that are anomalies and the way that that tracks to historical averages. And you've been reporting kind of in line with what we've seen with the map that highlights COVID-19 cases. So what are you thinking about in terms of maybe the plateau we're seeing in New York and how the spread has been managed by people staying at home more and more?

INDER SINGH: Yeah, thanks, Zack. So on March 18, we launched HealthWeather.us, which basically maps fevers across the country. And what we're plotting specifically on that map is unusual levels of fever, above and beyond what you'd normally expect for cold and flu season. And it's-- you know, we're seeing hot spots across the country. We're seeing that there is unusual levels of illness, COVID-19 spread, in many communities. We're seeing particular hot spots in the New York area and the Northeast and in Florida.

I think what's encouraging from what we've seen over the last week, week and a half, has been the fact that aggressive social distancing activities are cutting. They're breaking the chain of infection. And we're actually seeing fever levels drop.

We are-- this last weekend, we did see fever levels slow. So we saw that they were falling pretty rapidly. And the speed at which they're falling is starting to slow a little bit in the New York area and in other parts of the country, notably in Florida as well. And it could be that, in high density cities, in places like New York, where people are in apartments, not in homes, it just may be very hard to continue those kinds of aggressive social distancing activities.

So while encouraging, that social distancing is actually breaking the chain of infection, we do need to do more right now. And we need to make sure that we're continuing to stay at home or continuing to shelter in place to really, really make sure that we're not spreading the infection to new people.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, we can't take the foot off the gas I also want to bring on Akiko Fujita, who I know has some questions as well.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, thanks for that, Zack. Inder, good to talk to you again. I know when we spoke a few weeks ago, you'd mentioned the frustration with the lag in testing, talking about how your map provided a bit more of an accurate picture in terms of where the hotspots were. Since then, we've seen, of course, at a very local level, the tests ramping up. Are we still a few weeks out from understanding what the current reality on the ground is? How significant is that lag now?

INDER SINGH: So you know, as I understand it, we're seeing fairly widespread testing in New York. We are not necessarily seeing widespread testing in other areas of the country. So the real situation on the ground is not well characterized, for example, in places like Florida. And it's not well characterized in other places.

Based on everything we've analyzed, which is, to be clear, an incomplete data set, right? When you don't have widespread testing, you have an incomplete data set. But from everything we've seen, the data on where unusual fevers are occurring, where community spread of illness is occurring, is about a two to three-week leading indicator from where case numbers start building up. That's based on our analysis, as well as the analysis of a number of other entities.

And so what I'm concerned about is we do need to do more widespread testing in areas where there's clearly community spread, right? This is intuitive. When there's a rising level of people with fever, there's an outbreak of some sort. And when it's above and beyond the normal cold and flu season, it's something else. Right now, that something else is COVID-19.

And it's like a flashlight going on the map, saying, hey, something's going on here. Send the test kits in. Send the virologists in. And that's what we must be doing. We need to be sending the test kits in to those hotspot locations where there's clearly an outbreak of some sort going on, an unusual outbreak of some sort going on.

And again, in New York, I will just say, we're fortunate. In the last three or four days, there is widespread testing. But that is not occurring in every place in the country.

AKIKO FUJITA: You're out in California. And what we've heard are, not just California and Washington State certainly were out in front when you compare it to a place like New York in terms of putting those stay-at-home orders in place much quicker. We've heard from officials on the ground that things are starting to slow as a result. What's your data showing?

INDER SINGH: Yeah, so in California, we were fortunate-- I'm here in Oakland. And we were fortunate to have a number of companies, as well as government, implement shelter-in-place, stay-at-home restrictions. The companies out here started encouraging people to work from home even a week before that. So it was very, very rapid.

Yet our data showed that we did see an unusual level of fever. There was a rise, but it was for a short period of time. And it didn't rise very significantly. So the data is suggesting that the spread of illness in the community was short-lived and didn't affect as many people as perhaps in other parts of the country.

So it's reflecting what you just described there. I'm hopeful that the case numbers are going to start falling soon here, the number of people that are testing positive. And it is clear that we're seeing fever levels go to zero, which means the number of newly infected people, the spread of an illness in the community is ceasing. We're really starting to see some good effects there.

ZACK GUZMAN: On other states, I'm just curious, too, though. When you look at your map, other hot points, hot zones that you might be worried about spreads continuing or sparks just recently, where are those in the US right now?

INDER SINGH: Yeah, it depends on which view of the map you look at. But in many parts of the country, we're seeing fever levels head toward zero-- in Washington, in certain parts of the other country, and in California.

In New York, they're still at around 2%, which means that there are still people being newly infected. In Florida, they're falling towards 1%. That's really, really good. So in most parts of the country, we're really seeing that it is-- that we're breaking the chain of infection.

There are some places in the country that have not yet implemented aggressive social distancing activities. And I'm concerned about those areas. And I think it remains to be seen. We'll look at our data over time to see if there continues to be spread. I mean, really, what you want is you want the number of people that have a fever to be zero, right? Because then, that's the first signal that you've truly broken the chain of infection.

Let me take a step back for a moment and just talk about the epidemic response. In any epidemic, you want-- there's four steps. One, early warning. Two, widespread testing. Three, treatment and isolation, a very complex area in this particular illness, really complex. And fourth, you ultimately want antibody testing to understand what percentage of the population is now immune because they contracted it and maybe didn't get very sick.

In the absence of widespread testing, an early warning system like looking at where and when people have symptoms is even more important. And that's the whole reason we set up HealthWeather.us. Again, we need to send the test kits in. We need to send the virologists in when we see that an outbreak is occurring. And that is clearly indicative by seeing fever levels rise or fall.

AKIKO FUJITA: Inder, final question. You mentioned Florida is one of the hot spots. And that state, in some ways, has been a bit confusing in terms of their policy. You had counties like Miami-Dade County who were in the state early on in implementing a stay-at-home order. And then you had the governor sort of jumping in a week later.

And I'm wondering if, when you look at a very micro level, are you seeing that those counties that shut down things right away, is that curve starting to flatten much quicker on a broader scale? Or when you look at statewide, does it matter if all counties aren't on board?

INDER SINGH: Yeah, so what we're clearly saying from our data is that those locations across the country that implemented aggressive social distancing started seeing fever levels curb off within three to seven days. Within days, you started seeing the chain of infection being broken and falling.

In Florida, we saw about a week and a half, from roughly March 7 to March 18 and 19th, where fever levels skyrocketed. They more than doubled. There were more than double what you would normally expect during cold and flu season. And during that period of time, that is strongly indicative of community spread.

So you know, the data across the nation shows that that social distancing is working. And particularly in Florida, it's hard to sort of say neighboring county versus neighboring county what happened. But again, the data is clearly showing that aggressive social distancing is breaking the chain of infection.

I remain worried about Florida. I remain worried that there is a number of people that are not being tested who either have COVID or are developing severe symptoms. We need to do a more widespread testing there because the data clearly shows that there was community spread for a long period of time. And I remain worried about Florida.

ZACK GUZMAN: And we'll keep our eyes on it as we continue to hope for the best there. But for now, Inder Singh, the CEO of Kinsa, thank you so much for joining us with the latest data there. And our thanks to Akiko Fujita for joining us as well. Thanks, guys.