Coronavirus Realtime Tracking Maps
We are living in a pandemic world. As of March 12th, 2020 the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus proceeded to name it accordingly since the number of COVID-19 cases has increased in a speedily and widely manner across 116 countries/regions. It’s still in a controllable stage and it is in the interest of all that our countries follow the rules set up by the WHO:
- Prepare and be ready.
- Detect, prevent and treat.
- Reduce and suppress.
- Innovate and improve.
All of this while striving for social, health, human rights, economic and political balance but first, they must take this outbreak seriously. Several online resources are tracking the evolution of the disease, such as:
JHU CSSE is an interactive web-based dashboard by Johns Hopkins University, hosted by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering. It’s a comprehensive tool that has evolved since it was first published in January. The data is sourced primarily by DXY, which is a Chinese medical community online platform and there is also data manually sourced that is previously confirmation by regional and local health departments/authorities which is regulated by a team at JHU. Characteristics: visual, easy to navigate, mobile and web based.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Nextstrain is an open-sourced database not only for coronavirus but for also other viral pathogens such as Ebola, Influenza and Zika whose “goal is to aid epidemiological understanding and improve outbreak response.” It is not the easiest to use for the everyday person since it´s more directed to “virologists, epidemiologists, public health officials, and community scientists” but it does allow different layout options by multiple specifications and an animated map. GitHub sources the data using information from GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data). Characteristics: visual, easy to navigate, more advance, mobile and web based.
The Biocomplexity Institute of the University of Virginia has a surveillance dashboard whose data is sourced by: WHO, CDC, ECDC, NHC, 1Point3Acres, DXY, QQ, JHU CSSE (before 02-14-2020), ADCi and updated twice daily with the purpose of facilitating the efforts to plan and respond to the disease. It´s visually attractive and can also become interactive to be able to see a visual representation of the propagation of cases, deaths and also recoveries. Characteristics: visual, animated, easy to navigate, mobile and web based.
http://ncov.bii.virginia.edu/dashboard/
HealthMap is a simple and candid interactive map where we can also watch an animated version of the spread of the disease since January. the information they give is based only on the number of cases and they state that the data “exclusively collected from publicly available sources including government reports and news media” and it comes from GitHub depository of information reported by a compendium of individuals and organizations and multiple set of data sources. Characteristics: visual, simple, dynamic, animated, mobile and web based.
https://www.healthmap.org/covid-19/
Worldmeter is an upfront page with direct information that can also be found in graphs and tables. The most pressing information such as cases, deaths and recovered is right there as you open the page and this data is updated every day at GMT+0 sourced by China’s NHC. You can search for more specific information through different links, although some have not been updated for a while. Characteristics: Easy to navigate, tables and graphs, mobile and web based.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
By Maria Rosenburg
