Data Visualization: The Spread of Coronavirus
The world is grappling with 2019-nCoV the new Coronavirus spreading rapidly from the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan the capital of China's Hubei Province. The spreading virus which as of February 5th counts 24 642 confirmed cases across dozens of countries can be fatal resulting to-date in 494 deaths.
Response to the outbreak is vast and highly variable with China placing much of Hubei Province on a transit lockdown Russia shutting down their border with China which at just over 2 600 miles is the 6th longest land border in the world and nations around the world putting additional precautions into place at major ports-of-entry including quarantining flights and cruise ships with thousands of passengers.
Visualizing Disease Data
Given the nature of a viral epidemic like 2019-nCoV that spreads via human-to-human transmission the spatial component of the infection data is a critical component for understanding transmission patterns and rates and establishing emergency response plans.
The below map highlights the spread of the disease worldwide reflects the risks faced by distinct countries based on transit to and from countries with a significant number of cases.
Viewing Coronavirus statistics by province in China shows that the disease has followed major transit corridors and spread along populated coastal regions.
And finally we can see the epicenter of the disease within Hubei Province showing over 8 000 cases within the City of Wuhan.
Visualizing Infection Speed
In order to see how rapidly this disease has spread among the populace in Hubei Province we have visualized that spread from January 25th through February 6th.
COVID-19 Data Analytics & Grant Program
Since the initial publication of this post in early February the spread of coronavirus has increased significantly across the world. In that time we have published additional pieces and have a dedicated page on COVID-19 Data Analytics.
CARTO has also made its platform available to public and private sector organizations fighting against the coronavirus outbreak via our grants program. Whether you are a media outlet sharing advice for the general public a healthcare organization optimizing resource allocation or a government entity looking to assess the impact of lockdowns - we want to help you with your use case and ensure we are making data-driven decisions together throughout this outbreak. Some examples of those using the grant program follow.
- Education Week in the US: Tracking school closures.
- Alkemy in Italy: This dashboard created by @alkemy analyzes more than 2 million tweets to understand social media behavior on Twitter throughout the Coronavirus outbreak in Italy.
- Skylight Digital in the US: To show geographic data of COVID-19 cases in Los Angeles neighborhoods and to make LA data more accessible.
- Innóvate Perú in Peru: To be a reliable source of information in Peru
- cekdiri.id in Indonesia: To map COVID-19 risk & health facilities in Indonesia.
