Instagram founders build website tracking spread of Covid-19

Systrom and Mike Krieger, the Instagram founders, left Facebook in late 2018 after clashing with CEO Mark Zuckerberg. While neither man has a background in health or epidemiology, the same statistical modeling that applies to fast company growth might also be useful for tracking virus growth, Systrom said. — Bloomberg

Instagram’s founders, who have been mostly out of the public eye since leaving Facebook Inc in 2018, introduced a website that gives live state-by-state updates on the spread of Covid-19.

RT.live uses a statistic called an effective reproduction number, which tracks the average number of people who catch the virus from a single infected person.