Hospital workers
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Global Covid-19 infections will surpass the one-million mark by April 3, according to a new analytics tool unveiled by York University’s Schulich School of Business.

The analytics dashboard, which is based on publicly available data from the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science, the Engineering GIS platform and GitHub, aims to predict the number of new infections over the next five days for each country.

The tool, which was developed by scientists and data analysts at York’s business school, is intended to help provide daily insights into the spread of Covid-19.

“The numbers provided by the Covid-19 Dynamics dashboard could help decision-makers make informed decisions,” said Dr. Murat Kristal, director of Schulich’s Master of Management in Artificial Intelligence and Master of Business Analytics programs, in a release.

“Even though our five-day accuracy is currently 67%, the one-day accuracy is over 90%. We also expect the five-day accuracy rate to improve as more data becomes available,” Kristal added. “Given how fast things are changing, this predictive data will be very helpful to policy makers, health care administrators and public officials.”

Currently, the dashboard is forecasting that there will be over 300,000 new cases in the next five days, reaching 1.09 million global infections by April 4.

For Canada alone, it’s currently forecasting 2,652 new cases over the next five days, putting the national total at just over 10,000.