These 'disease hunters' developed a novel technique for tracking pandemics after 9/11, but lost funding right before COVID-19

Nearly two decades ago, when 9/11 spurred governments to invest in fighting bioterrorism, a group of disease experts figured out how to track pandemics using data from emergency rooms with a technique called 'syndromic surveillance.' Now, as the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic spreads, they're calling on the private sector for help.