COVID-19, Public Health, and Disaster Prepardness Solutions #2: More Useful Data Visualizations
This article will be the first in a series of ongoing blog posts exploring how mobile, digital technologies, GIS data analytics, and artificial intelligence might offer new ways to save lives during a crisis situation such as the current Coronavirus Pandemic.
VISUALIZATIONS
Never before, have data models shaped the global public discourse…with real life and death reprecussions. Here are some other very useful data visualization tools that will help you understand the ever-evolving impacts of COVID-19 in context. Please pay attention to the sources of data and analysis. Of note, this article explains the difficulty in creating a ‘perfect’ data model’, with so many changing variables. Thus, it is important for modelers to manage expectations and create ‘inclusive’ data visualizations that are intuitive even for those with lower levels of math literacy.
- The University of Washington’s Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation COVID-19 dashboard has become quite popular, challenging even the world-leading John Hopkins University model. It trades JHU’s scary black-and-red pandemic map for a clean, more useful ‘supply vs. demand’ curve of disease cases vs. hospital beds. Some data scientists may argue with accuracy, but this IHME model may become the new gold standard.
- Financial Times dashboard. This elegantly simple design has side-by-side comparison of each countries’ disease curves. You can view the trajectories of where each country is headed, in addition to overall volume. These trajectory curves offer a more useful picture than the hotspot maps. The dashboard also includes economic metrics, which will become increasingly important as we look for the long-term path beyond immediate disase containment.
- New York Times visualizations. NYT has a strong portfolio of data journalism for good reason, even before COVID-19. Now, NYT has been producing a steady stream of interactive visualizations as well as helpful explanations of how data should be viewed.
- A great list of COVID-19 resources from Visual Capitalist (some I’ve already mentioned). Visual Capitalist is just a treasure trove of data visualizations and graphics in general.
- Here’s a list from Mapbox, itself a great hub for GIS-based COVID-19 displays.
