Spatial Analytics and Dashboards - Helping to assess and assist in the global COVID-19 scenario

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Spatial Dashboards providing insights on the COVID-19 crisis

WGIC has seen an uptake in the application and use of spatial analytics during the COVID-19 pandemic in the form of dashboards with spatial analytics. A majority of them are providing near real-time information on the global and regional spread. And some are offering a historical analysis. A select few are also explaining how it happened through an interactive map story. This effort from WGIC is to highlight the work from various organizations.

All authorities are looking at data through maps and interactive visualizations in these days of crisis, because we instinctively understand the integrative power of mapping data; where people are affected, even concentrated areas and clustering.

Stefan Schweinfest

Director, Director of the Statistics Division (UNSD/DESA), United Nations

Spatial analytics based stories from the global media

We came across the work from four global media brands – BBC, The Washington Post, The Financial Times and The New York Times. Most recommended work from this is the work titled ‘How the Virus Got Out’ from The New York Times.

Governments informing citizens with COVID-19 dashboards

We found use cases from almost all the countries, having dashboards. A few to note are from Hong Kong, Italy, United States. Most of them are based on Esri ArcGIS Technology.

Dashboards from Health Organizations & Agencies

As the COVID-19 spread across the globe, The World Health Organization (WHO) took proactive steps to enable a global COVID-19 dashboard. This was then followed by regional level agencies and other organizations in the medical profession. Here is the list of five dashboards that we have found.

Multilateral organizations and Non-profits using spatial analytics for COVID-19

As part of our research on the topic of the use of spatial analytics dashboards, we also came across the following four use cases from multilateral organizations and Non-profits are that using spatial analytics-based dashboards to asses COVID-19 situation.

Dashboards from Tech companies

We have initially covered on how WGIC members and leading industry players Esri and Hexagon are providing spatial analytics based COVID-19 dashboards. Further we found Google and OmniSci also providing such datasets.

Spatial insights from Academic & Research Institutes

One of the earlier dashboards we saw during the COVID-19 crisis was from the Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). We also now find the University of Virginia, University of Oxford and the University of Wisconsin providing GIS-based dashboards. Here is a brief into their work.

How are governments using location tracking in combination with personal data to track and combat COVID-19?

With COVID-19 taking the central stage across the globe, the governments, non-profits and other civil society organizations are finding new ways to tackle the spread of the virus. As a part of this effort is the contact tracing technology that is helping various governments with the help of location tracking and analysis. Here is how various countries are using location tracking and personal data to combat COVID-19.