DATA in the time of COVID-19

Open data, data use, and COVID-19

The current COVID-19 pandemic raises important questions about opening, sharing and using data, and highlights the challenges associated with data use. To address the ongoing need for data-driven decision making, Open Data Watch has put together some of the most helpful articles we’ve found, organized by the stages of the data value chain: availability, openness, dissemination, and use and uptake. These will be updated as new information becomes available and new resources will be noted with each update by the text *New*. The date of publication is listed beside each article; however, dates are not shown for dashboards and data sources that are dynamically updated. If you know of something more to add, please contact us.

Updated

27 January 2022

Availability

What data are available to understand the spread of COVID-19?

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The Economist creates a COVID-19 excess death tracker to understand the ongoing death toll of the pandemic better. Their tracker is updated daily and includes estimates for all countries, regions, and globally. *New*
Global.health is a new global data repository and visualization platform which provides open access to epidemiological anonymized microdata.
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) has gathered conflict data that are directly related to the pandemic into one data file.
In anticipation of the academic year, Alisha Morris, a theater teacher in Kansas’ Olathe School District, developed a national database to track COVID-19 related school closings, quarantines, cases, and deaths. (8/17/20)
The Openpath Social Distancing Index provides real-time data on social distancing rates across US states.
COVID-19-related imaging data and AI resources compiled by Stanford University’s Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine & Imaging.
The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) has collated a list of resources from member organizations on earth observation data to fight COVID-19.
The Center for Disease Control has released its first dataset on COVID-19 cases in children in the United States. (4/6/20)
The United Nations Statistics Division, in partnership with ESRI, launched a new COVID-19 data hub to disseminate COVID-19 data that is interoperable with data on national platforms.
Data.World curated a collection of COVID-19 data sources.
The World Bank curates a collection of COVID-19 datasets and a dashboard for understanding the COVID-19 pandemic through data.
The World Health Organization (WHO) provides daily status reports including new cases and totals.
The European Union has launched a regional data portal for scientists and researchers studying COVID-19, along with the EU Open Data portal which publishes worldwide data on COVID-19 cases.
The EU Open Data portal has data that is updated daily on COVID-19 cases worldwide.
The US Center of Disease Control (CDC) provides daily updates on cases in the US.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control tallies global cases.
Our World in Data has provided data on country-by-country coronavirus testing along with country-by-country confirmed cases and deaths.
Google has created a central repository for COVID-19 data, resources, and visualizations.
ESRI has created a hub for geospatial COVID-19 data and resources.
The Allen Institute for AI has released a dataset of articles on coronavirus family of viruses to apply recent advances in natural language processing to generate new insights in support of the fight against the virus.
The National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China provides updates on cases in China.
The Corona Data Scraper pulls COVID-19 case data from verified sources, finds the corresponding GeoJSON features, and adds population data to help data analysts understand the virus.
Two APIs have been developed to provide continual, free, and updated access to COVID-19 data to create visualizations and analyses: COVID Tracking and the Virustracker.

Openness

How are open data and data availability affecting the fight against COVID-19?

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Álvaro V. Ramírez-Alujas reflects on the impact, scope, and challenges of open data for mitigating COVID-19 and its impact on society. *New*
Open Data Charter builds a framework on pandemic data collection and dissemination for future outbreaks. (9/16/21) *New*
The OECD Digital Government and Data Unit and NYU’s The Gov Lab assess how open government data was used to react and respond to COVID-19 during the initial stage of the crisis.
Report from Reuters on how the Chinese Government refused to provide the World Health Organization with raw data from the early days of the pandemic, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the outbreak began. (3/13/21)
The Swedish central Government and other key actors are working to increase the use of open data and AI to design and deliver public care services that combat the spread of COVID-19. (3/8/21)
The Voice of America reports on Russia’s statistics agency, Rosstat, infrequent COVID-19 reporting. The most recent update showed that more than 200,000 Russians diagnosed with COVID-19 have died, more than double the figure used by the government’s coronavirus task force. (3/5/21)
Researchers call for more open research platforms and new measures for sharing SARS-CoV-2 genome data to help analyze how viral variants are spreading around the world. (2/3/21)
Joseph Darius Jaafari describes the recent reporting flaws in COVID-19 data in Pennsylvania correction facilities. He explains that this data is crucial for keeping inmates safe and tracking the virus’s spread and, therefore, must be accurate. (2/1/21)
The Biden administration has emphasized its commitment to equitable analysis of COVID-19 data. FedScoop explains that for this to be possible, open data needs to be prioritized. (12/16/20)
Health Affairs authors a piece that highlights examples where open data was used to fight the pandemic. The article outlines key challenges and offers recommendations for fostering an open data ecosystem that allows open data to be used during the pandemic. (11/2/20)
Health Affairs authors a blog on the potential role of open data in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic and outlines challenges and opportunities for open data to have an impact on the pandemic. (11/2/20)
Claire Melamed, the CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, explains that the pandemic shows why governments cannot effectively tackle big problems without good data and highlights data collection and usage gaps. (10/23/20)
In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, corruption has also surged in Latin America the past few months. Open data and analytics have been used as a critical weapon to fight against corruption and counterfeit medical equipment. (8/28/20)
The Lancet explains the difficulty of conducting cross-country comparisons when many countries in authoritarian Central Asian states have unreliable reporting of COVID-19 cases. Turkmenistan has yet to report a single case of COVID-19 and Tajikistan has not provided breakdowns to the World Health Organization. (7/11/20)
While official numbers make it seem like COVID-19 has skirted most of Africa, experts are worried that a “silent epidemic” is occurring because many countries lack the resources to test for COVID-19 and monitor deaths. (7/8/20)
The West Virginia Governor, Jim Justice, forced out the commissioner of his public health bureau hours after he publicly questioned the accuracy of the state’s coronavirus data and detailed growing outbreaks in about a dozen counties, writes NBC News. (6/24/20)
STAT explains how the dearth of disability-related COVID-19 data can confound response efforts. (6/12/20)
Amid accusations of censorship, the supreme court of Brazil has ordered the government to begin to publish cumulative COVID-19 data again. The government has now restored the website hosting the data. (6/9/20)
Brazil’s government is accused of committing a “statistical coup” after the health ministry web page for COVID-19 data went offline. (6/8/20)
As COVID-19 case counts soar in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro decides to remove the data from public view. (6/6/20)
An article from the Oregonian discusses the state’s decision not to release the COVID-19 data that the Oregon state government used to decide to reopen. (6/3/20)
Healthcare IT News explains how COVID-19 has highlighted the limitations of nationwide data sharing programs and the problems of relying on manual processes to gather and submit data. (6/2/20)
A coalition of more than 500 scientists from around the world has joined to share data on COVID-19 through mass spectrometry techniques which can examine a patient’s blood and other significant biomarkers. (6/1/20)
The Open Data Charter and the OECD Digital Government and Data Unit collaborate to identify high-value open data that can be used to fight COVID-19. (5/25/20)
The researcher, Rebekah Jones, who was fired from her job at the Florida Department of Health after leading efforts to correctly document COVID-19 cases, has created a dashboard of her own. The dashboard shows that only two of the 67 counties in Florida meet the criteria for easing restrictions. (5/24/20)
The dearth of COVID-19 data in India has forced Indians to rely on Chinese or Western data. Akshay Baheti, an assistant professor in the department of radiodiagnosis at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, explains how this has been impeding their fight against COVID-19. (5/17/20)
Read about the Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building’s support for the improved availability, quality, and use of data by countries in their response to the pandemic. (5/14/20)
In Asia, the region where the novel COVID-19 first emerged, only three countries have shared complete data on infections and mortality by sex: China, Iran, and South Korea. (5/5/20)
Eddie Copeland, Directory at the London Office of Technology and Innovation, explores the role of data in a post COVID-19 recovery. (4/30/20)
The Lancet authors a piece on the failure to build robust data sharing systems on a large-scale to provide real-time analysis on health data during the COVID-19 pandemic. (4/30/20)
The GovLab maps out the data needed to respond to the threat of COVID-19. (4/15/20)
The World Economic Forum explains why we could be vastly overestimating the death rate for COVID-19. (4/4/20)
Stefan Verhulst describes the potential of data collaboratives for COVID-19. (4/1/20)
Wired reports on efforts from doctors to pool data to help understand COVID-19. (3/25/20)
Politico reports on Big Tech and whether — or how — to use all their user data to fight the pandemic. (3/18/20)
Canada Broadcasting Channel reports on the increase and importance of data sharing to fight COVID 19. (3/17/20)
STAT discusses the dearth of data on the real course of the epidemic. (3/17/20)
The GovLab and partners have issued a call to action to build the data infrastructure and ecosystem to respond to pandemics and other societal threats. (3/16/20)
The Open Data Institute writes on the importance of publishing the data and models for decision making on COVID-19 to provide accountability to the public and support common efforts. (3/16/20)
This article from Wired describes how data sharing and open-source software can help combat COVID-19. (3/13/20)
Politico writes on the five stats that should be published and updated daily to understand and stop the spread of the coronavirus. (3/13/20)
The spread of COVID-19 is also affecting how the US gathers its census data. (3/13/20)

What are the privacy challenges to using open data in the fight against COVID-19?

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The CT post reports that data from the mass COVID-19 vaccination demonstrate that the sites are not accessible, and many vaccination clinics in cities should do more to encourage minority residents to participate. (3/8/21)
NPR authors a piece on interim data on the COVAXIN vaccine, developed by Bharat Biotech, showing signs of efficiency. While some have deemed it premature, the Indian Government has approved its use and aims to vaccinate 300 million people by July. (3/4/21)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is collecting demographic characteristics on people receiving COVID-19 vaccinations at the national level. Recent data from early March show that nearly two-thirds of the people who have received the vaccine were white. (3/3/21)
Daniel Estrin authors a piece for NPR about how the vaccines-for-data trade-off has sparked debate among data privacy experts and others weighing the potential benefits of mining the population for vaccine insights. (1/31/21)
Sara Morrison covers a story for Vox about a scandal in Philadelphia that began when a vaccine clinic provider changed its privacy policy to say its data might be sold, underscoring the need for more robust health privacy laws. (1/28/21)
Laurel Wamsley authors a piece for NPR on recent privacy concerns after ministers in Singapore’s government declared that data collected during COVID-19 contact tracing can be used for criminal investigations. (1/5/21)
Hayden Dahmm authors a piece on data sharing in a post-pandemic world and how to wind down surveillance measures safely. (11/30/20)
The Mexico City government implemented a COVID-19 contact tracing app in which people must scan a QR code with their mobile device every time someone enters a closed space. This initiative was met with resistance as many citizens did not want to be obligated to carry a cell phone and did not feel comfortable sharing their data with the government, reports Slate. (11/23/20)
Brief from SDSN TReNDS and Data Ready examining the potential of sunset clauses or sunset provisions to be a legally binding, enforceable, and accountable way of ensuring COVID-19 related data sharing agreements are wound down responsibly at the end of the pandemic. (11/6/20)
As dozens of countries, including the United States, are using mobile phone tools and new data sources for COVID-19 surveillance, RAND Corporation, explains how to balance data collection and privacy concerns.
NPR article discusses the lessons learned and the challenges encountered by the 14 states that have made their contract tracing data public. (8/14/20)
Samantha Humphries discusses the privacy challenges for contact-tracing applications and calls for rigorous standards to make sure that the societal impact of COVID-19 does not extend into personal privacy. (7/23/20)
Justin Tarka and Stephen Riga from National Law Review explain privacy regulations in the EU and the US and explore the issues of consent in the context of COVID-19. (7/22/20)
MIT Technology Review critiques two COVID-19 tracing apps in France and Australia for not being effective. In France, the StopCovid app was downloaded by 2 million people, and only sent alerts to 14 people to tell them they had been exposed to the virus, in Australia the CovidSafe app was downloaded by 6 million and failed to identify a single case. (7/10/20)
COVID-19 contact tracing apps are vital for the re-opening of states and to track the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, rising security concerns are making these apps unpopular with users. (7/6/20)
The Open Data Institute publishes a guide on anonymizing data in times of crisis. The new guide looks at how anonymization techniques can be applied to reduce the risks of re-identification and possible harm resulting from sharing sensitive data about people. (6/4/20)
This article from the Journal of International Humanitarian Action discusses the lack of legal regulations for data protection and privacy during the pandemic and outlines how best practices from humanitarian interventions could fill the regulations gap. (5/18/20)
Article from The Economist on progress being made in the UK to study medical records while preserving patient confidentiality by a collection of epidemiologists and data scientists called the OpenSAFELY collective. The OpenSAFELY collective works within the UK NHS data system, thus reducing the risk that the sensitive data they are working with is moved or falls in the wrong hands. (5/14/20)
Analysis from the Washington Post on the limited usefulness of smartphone location data now that the US is opening up. Although these data are helpful for understanding if people are abiding by stay-at-home orders, the data are not precise enough to tell whether people abide by social distancing rules while out of their homes and they don’t factor in other aspects of the environment — like windows or whether someone sneezed — that affect transmission rates. (5/14/20)
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service contact tracing app is facing allegations of poor data protection practices. The government is discussing replacing it with the decentralized contact tracing model developed by Apple and Google. (5/7/20)
India is currently the only democratic nation in the world that is making its coronavirus tracking app mandatory for millions of people, according to MIT Technology Review’s Covid Tracing Tracker, a database of global contact tracing apps. While official policy is that downloading the app is voluntary, government employees are required to use it and major private employers and landlords are mandating it as well. (5/7/20)
MIT Technology Review created the Covid Tracing Tracker — a database to capture details of every significant automated contact tracing effort around the world. This tool can be used to understand the different privacy implications and tracking features of contact tracing apps. (5/7/20)
Rapid test site data for COVID-19 was not shared with Scottish ministers as these results were restricted from sharing because of data disclosure rules, writes the Guardian. (5/5/20)
The blog Marginal Revolution provides a critique of the efficacy of contact tracing apps. (5/2/20)
The New York Times on privacy concerns with newly developed COVID-19 tracking apps that are being released with little oversight and hastily written software. (4/29/20)
The Hewlett Foundation authors a piece on six ways to reconcile data use and data rights during the COVID-19 pandemic. (4/29/20)
Open Data Charter calls for a consensus on collective data rights and needs during the time of COVID-19. (4/27/20)
Israel’s Supreme Court has banned their intelligence agency from phone tracing those who are infected with COVID-19 until proper tracking laws are implemented. (4/27/20)
The New Yorker reviews the challenges to track COVID-19 and protect privacy. (4/27/20)
Caroline Buckee, an epidemiologist, debates the question, how much privacy are we willing to give up to stop the outbreak? (4/27/20)
UNICEF authors a blog on the ethical collection of data from children during the COVID-19 pandemic. (4/24/20)
The Economist discusses how the EU’s privacy regulations are being tested by COVID-19. (4/23/20)
Report from The Guardian that the UK is using confidential patient data in its COVID-19 response. (4/12/20)
As different sectors join to improve the availability of COVID-19 data and mobilize location data, this article outlines the best practices for anonymizing or deidentifying location data. (4/6/20)
The Intercept provides guidelines on how to perform responsible surveillance in the time of COVID-19. (4/2/20)
Tech Crunch reports on an EU coalition of techies is backing a ‘privacy-preserving’ standard for COVID-19 contacts tracing. (4/1/20)
Advice from the World Economic Forum on how to restore data privacy after the coronavirus pandemic. (3/31/20)
Article from Fast Company on how COVID-19 could change the debate on privacy. (3/26/20)
Article from the Center for Global Development on the guidelines for using digital surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic. (3/20/20)
Tom Orrell from the Data Ready Initiative proposes five data governance rules to use to protect privacy in the COVID-19 crisis. (3/19/20)
The Washington Post reports on how the Israeli government is working on using secret access to cell phone data in the country to trace the contacts COVID-19 patients have had with others. (3/16/20)
The European Data Protection Board released a statement on the importance of protecting privacyin COVID-19 datasets. (3/16/20)
Article from the Verge on how to balance the right to privacy with the demand for public health data on COVID-19. (3/12/20)
This article from the International Association of Privacy Professionals outlines the relevant data protection laws, including GDPR, that apply to COVID-19 data. (3/11/20)

Dissemination

What visualizations are available to understand COVID-19?

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A new graphic data story from CEPEI reveals a nine-year vaccination gap between high-and low-income countries. (7/28/21)
A Guardian Australia analysis and map show how the pattern of COVID-19 cases has changed by region and throughout Sydney and New South Wales. (7/27/20)
The Washington Post creates several data visualizations highlighting how COVID-19 has disrupted travel worldwide. (7/21/20)
FiveThirtyEight conducts a statistical analysis of how Americans perceive COVID-19 and Trump’s response to the virus. They provide graphics to understand how this perception has changed over time. (7/21/20)
The New York Times created a detailed map demonstrating which neighborhoods in the United States are wearing protective masks. (7/17/20)
Graphics from The Economist track the spread of COVID-19 across Europe and present deaths and cases per 100,000 people to control for population size between countries. (7/2/20)
Visualization from ProPublica tracking metrics derived White House guidelines for states to achieve before loosening restrictions and showing COVID-19 infection rates in US states over time. (6/28/20)
Storytelling visualization from the New York Times analyzing travel patterns, hidden infections, and genetic data to show how the epidemic spun out of control in the United States. (6/25/20)
New charts available from Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center show the impact of state policy on COVID-19 cases and deaths. (6/25/20)
Article from the Washington Post that uses data from SafeGraph to show how counties around the United States are abiding by stay-at-home orders and notes an uptick across the country in the number of people leaving their homes. (5/6/20)
The Marshall Project reviews COVID-19 rates in prison populations in states across the US. (5/1/20)
With COVID-19 charts emerging across the internet, this World Bank blog explains the issues on charting coronavirus data and introduces a new type of chart that captures mortality cases and case fatality rates. (4/20/20)
Visualizations from The Economist tracking COVID-19 excess deaths across countries. (4/16/20)
Visualization of the occupations with the highest risk of contracting COVID-19. (4/15/20)
MIT data scientist discusses the importance of data visualizations to help people understand COVID-19. (4/13/20)
New York Times visualization on how COVID-19 is spreading in different cities in America. (4/6/20)
This visualization from the New York Times demonstrates how income affects people’s abilities to stay home and practice social distancing. (4/3/20)
The New York Times maps out how stay-at-home orders affected the spread of COVID-19 in the US. (4/2/20)
Video from Vox comparing the spread and mortality rate of COVID-19 to the flu, measles, and other diseases. (4/1/20)
Modeling and animation from 3Blue1Brown of a theoretical pandemic and results on the efficacy of different efforts to control it. (3/27/20)
Video from minutephysics on interpreting and understanding graphs on the growth of COVID-19. (3/27/20)
An interactive visualization from the NY Times on how the COVID-19 spread around the world to become a pandemic. (3/22/20)
Visualization from Reuters describing the results from Korea’s contact tracing program in the first days of the pandemic highlighting which individuals were the biggest spreaders of the virus and why. (3/20/20)
Video from the CDC on the different mortality rates for pandemics throughout history. (3/19/20)
The BBC guide to the pandemic includes a series of visualizations to understand the virus and its spread. (3/19/20)
This VOX article is a collection of important charts to understand the virus. (3/17/20)
These visualizations from the Washington Post show how epidemics spread and how to “Flatten the curve” and reduce the fatality rate from COVID-19. (3/14/20)
Canada’s Globe and Mail produced these visualizations on how different countries are working to “Flatten the curve.”(3/14/20)
Model from the University from Maryland on how climate can affect the spread of COVID-19. (3/13/20)
Ten considerations and best practices for designing and creating COVID-19 visualizations. (3/11/20)

What dashboards are available to understand COVID-19?

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CEPEI, in partnership with the United Nations Multi-Partner Trust Fund and with the support of Tableau, launches the COVID-19 Data and Innovation Centre. This digital platform will help countries make better decisions regarding the distribution of COVID-19 resources. (12/3/20)
NPR creates a page with a few COVID-19 dashboards, including an infection heat map, curve charts, a table of state-by-state trends, and a map of total cases and deaths.
The New York Times creates a customizable COVID-19 dashboard that can be used to compare COVID-19 statistics between different counties, states, and the united states as a whole to better understand how the COVID-19 risk around the US.
The New York Times publishes a COVID-19 case tracker to track the spread of the virus at colleges and universities around the United States as more than 100 colleges have re-opened this fall.
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific created a tracker of policy responses to COVID-19 in Asia and the Pacific.
The COVID-19 Forecast Hub maintains an up-to-date record for forecasts of COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the US.
Dashboard from Axios provides COVID-19 deaths and confirmed cases by state and provides summaries of top-level findings on the spread of COVID-19 in the US.
UNFPA publishes a COVID-19 population vulnerability dashboard to provide country and regional offices, policymakers, and the public with access to useful information on population vulnerabilities to COVID-19.
Artificial Intelligence for Digital Response created a platform for analyzing Twitter trends related to COVID-19.
The website endcoronavirus.org – developed by experts from New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), Harvard, UCLA, and MIT – contains dashboards on the global spread of the virus, guidelines for citizens and policymakers, and simple tools to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
The Social Distancing Scoreboard dashboard displays social distancing scores for counties and states in the US to help organizations to measure and understand the efficacy of social distancing initiatives at the local level.
Dashboard from Topos, a machine learning and location intelligence startup based in Brooklyn, New York, providing a number of datasets and visualizations on the spread of COVID-19 in the United States.
Dashboard from Carnegie Melon on the occurrence of COVID-19 symptoms in the United States using crowdsourced data from Facebook.
Johns Hopkins University launched a US-focused coronavirus tracking map. (4/14/20)
The CovidCareMap dashboard provides data on all US hospitals’ bed capacity to care for COVID-19 patients.
Johns Hopkins adds additional data visualization tools alongside their COVID-19 tracking map. (4/9/20)
This dashboard from 1Point3Acres combines several sources to provide high-quality data on COVID-19 cases in the US and Canada.
The Social Progress Imperative created a map of COVID-19 vulnerability in cities around America.
The CovidActNow dashboard provides predicitions on when the outbreak will hit states around the US.
SimularWeb offers a daily assessment of the consumer and business behavior amid the COVID-19 pandemic and tracks the economic impact of COVID-19.
United Nations World Food Program releases a world travel restriction tracker.
Oxford University launches the world’s first COVID-19 government response tracker. (3/25/20)
Johns Hopkins created a global dashboard to track the spread of the virus.
This amazing dashboard to track COVID-19 infection rates around the world was created by a 17-year-old and has become one of the central information points for understanding the spread of the virus.
ESRI has created maps of the spread of COVID-19 around the world and a narrative story map to explain the spread.
Our World in Data provides a series of visualizations of the confirmed cases and deaths around the world from WHO data.
The COVID-19 MAP on cases, travel restrictions, and other critical informationis updated every few minutes thanks to the https://reddit.com/r/covidmapping team of volunteers.
The Financial Times uses the data, including from Johns Hopkins, to track cases and deaths with innovative graphics.
UpCode created this simple but beautiful dashboard on the spread of coronavirus in Singapore.
Nextstrain’s dashboard on the spread of the coronavirus includes information on how the genetics of the virus has changed as it has spread around the globe.
Visualizations of foot traffic from Safe Graph to understand how Americans are following social distancing guidelines.
MIT reviewed  a  list of dashboards on the coronavirus to identify the best and worst dashboards. (3/6/20)

Uptake and Use

What are the challenges to creating and using COVID-19 data around the world?

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The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population explains the role of population scientists during COVID-19, such as evaluating the death toll linked to an pandemic and describing how it affects fundamental aspects of social life. *New*
The World Bank, in collaboration with National Statistical Offices, uses phone surveys to better understand the share of households that have lost, gained, or had no change in their income since the start of the pandemic. (1/18/22) *New*
The Global Fund explains what ‘data agility’ is and why it is important for mitigating public health crises such as COVID-19. (1/13/22) *New*
PARIS21’s report PRESS2021 offers a comprehensive analysis of international data and statistics financing during COVID-19. (11/24/21) *New*
A Clearinghouse blog highlights the importance of funding data systems to mitigate the impact of the pandemic using a case study from Niger and the impact poor data collection is having on their healthcare system. (11/23/21) *New*
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the consequences of low levels of data literacy and data-informed decisions. Craig Hammer, Jacopo Ottaviani, and Ravi Kumar of World Bank Data discuss this unprecedented and urgent need for good quality and timely data. (9/28/21) *New*
A World Bank and UN Statistics Division survey found that the effects of COVID-19 disruptions on national statistical offices are more long-term than initially anticipated. (8/11/21)
The World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) team created a training course on conducting phone surveys during the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders to partially supplement face-to-face data collection. (8/18/21)
NPR highlights data gaps and COVID-19 related challenges in fragile states, humanitarian emergencies, and forced displacement settings like refugee camps and conflict areas. (3/15/2021)
A study from MIT demonstrates how COVID-19 skeptics have used public health data to create misguiding “counter-visualizations” which are quite sophisticated and use data from official sources. (3/4/21)
The Open Data Institute – in collaboration with luminate – launches a new initiative to analyze COVID-19 symptoms trackers to understand how they can cooperate to maximize the value of the data they collect. (1/5/21)
Human Rights Watch reports that last there has been a major leak of personal data of COVID-19 patients in Moscow hospitals. (12/15/20)
The new PRESS 2020 report by PARIS21 raises concerns that during the COVID-19 pandemic less than 0.5% of international aid on COVID-19 so far has a primary focus on data and statistics. However, data needs have never been higher. (12/8/20)
Modern Diplomacy reports that the United Nations and 15 of its agencies have signed a joint statement that underlines their support for ethical data collection during COVID-19. (11/21/20)
UNICEF authors a piece on the surge in dashboards due to the need to distribute COVID-19 data to the public. They also warn that dashboards can be misinterpreted and misused to spread misinformation. (11/10/20)
Stephanie Chin and Caitlin Chin author a piece for Tech Tank on the importance of developing a common data space to reduce COVID-19 infection rates. (11/2/20)
At the frontline of the COVID-19 response, cities in Indonesia have embraced the need for agile digital data platforms so they can quickly provide support to citizens as the pandemic rages on. (10/29/20)
The COVID-19 epidemic has impacted the population of Spain far more than most feared or projected and, like most countries, there is a need for detailed COVID-19 data. (10/9/20)
A technical glitch and data management error caused nearly 16K cases of COVID-19 to go unreported and delayed efforts to trace contacts who tested positive in the United Kingdom. (10/5/20)
British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, downplayed the failure in England’s COVID-19 testing data system, which delayed the release of 15,841 COVID-19 test results. (10/5/20)
EHR Intelligence authors a piece on a data standardization tool that normalizes and characterizes COVID-19 testing names to the Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC). This tool can support COVID-19 research and improve data interoperability. (8/19/20)
Ruth Levine, the CEO of IDInsight, calls on the World Health Organization to create guidelines for in-person survey data collection that minimize the health risks to survey workers and interviewees. (7/28/20)
A new research paper discusses the quality of COVID-19 data and reporting done by the states and union territories of India and calls for coordination to share resources and information. (7/21/20)
Claudia Cappa and Filipa de Castro from UNICEF raise concerns that persons with disabilities may be left out in data collection during COVID-19. (7/20/20)
Sara Nyman, a Senior Economist at the World Bank Group, authors a piece on the risks policymakers face when trying to fully harness the benefits of data-driven tech platforms. (7/14/20)
Doctors in the UK are pleading for the government to release the most accurate and up-to-date information on surging COVID-19 cases in the country, writes the Guardian. (7/1/20)
The United Nations Statistics Division, together with the World Bank Group, authors a brief on monitoring the state of statistical operations during COVID-19 and provides highlights from a global survey of national statistical offices. (6/5/20)
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has rolled out a new initiative to accelerate the distribution of COVID-19 testing in Africa. (6/5/20)
The International Monetary Fund, explains why accurate and timely economic data are crucial for informing policy decisions, especially during COVID-19. (5/26/20)
CNN discusses the data problems with Worldometer’s COVID-19 dashboard, including data errors, lack of reporting of sources, and unclear reporting methodologies. (5/19/20)
This article from the Lancet argues that better evidence — and international cooperation — is needed to assess the effect of cross-border travel and trade restrictions on the spread of COVID-19. (5/14/20)
Russia’s reported COVID-19 mortality rate is 7.6 times lower compared with the world average, which has prompted questions from international observers on the validity of their data. Moscow attributes its low mortality rate to an ‘exceptionally precise’ method of ascribing cause of death. (5/14/20)
Claire Melamed, the CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, lists five lessons on how to have better data after the pandemic. (5/13/20)
About 40% of Iceland’s population is using a COVID-19 contact tracing app, but a senior official says the app has not significantly helped reduce the number of COVID-19 cases in the country. (5/11/20)
Tanzania COVID-19 lab head suspended as president questions data. Authorities launch probe but opposition, which accuses the government of hiding coronavirus information, defends lab director. (5/5/20)
Development Initiatives explains the effects of weak data infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic. (4/23/20)
Jessica Espey, Senior Advisor to the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and director of SDSN TReNDS, explains the importance of maximizing the value of big data during COVID-19 while also avoiding its risks. (4/15/20)
Jeni Tennison, the vice-president of the Open Data Institute, explores the dearth of COVID-19 data in the UK. (4/2/20)
The Conversation reports on the importance of incorporating biases in testing in COVID-19 country comparisons. (4/2/20)
Forbes reports on how not counting asymptomatic coronavirus carriers in China has been keeping their official numbers of COVID-19 infections lower than the actual rates of infection. (3/31/20)
Researchers call for wider testing as Iceland finds half of COVID-19 positive cases are asymptomatic. (3/22/20)
Article from the EU observer on the questions of reliability about WHO COVID-19 data. (3/13/20)
The Washington Post writes about Chinese hackers using coronavirus data to steal sensitive user information. (3/13/20)
Hackers used a dashboard posing as one from John’s Hopkins University to illegally harvest personal information. (3/13/20)

What are the challenges to creating and using COVID-19 data specifically with regard to the heterogeneous response in the US?

(Due to the volume of US-specific sources, they have been collected separately below.)

Rudi Keller authors a piece on Missouri’s COVID-19 report, which – due to reporting challenges – excluded 80,000 COVID-19 cases and 1,000 deaths from their official COVID-19 statistics. (3/7/21)
The DeSantis administration in Florida raised a few questions about public and accessible data during the pandemic, states the Miami Herald. They have recently ignored public-records requests for specifics of contact tracing in Florida, and the Government won’t disclose the number of deaths at specific eldercare facilities. (3/6/21)
The White House coronavirus task force is concerned with the unstable access and collection of COVID-19 data in the US due to the breaks during the holiday season. There are growing concerns that this will make it difficult to track the trajectory of the pandemic. (12/29/20)
Slate authors a piece on the possibility that Florida’s Government is hiding COVID-19 data from the public despite recent efforts to obtain official records. (12/16/20)
The United States HHS makes a significant release of facility-level hospitalization data going back to August. (12/7/20)
Beth Blauer, the executive director of the Johns Hopkins University Centers for Civic Impact, and Jennifer Nuzzo, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, discuss the absence of federal standards for COVID-19. (11/23/20)
Stats News reports that hospitalized COVID-19 patients are surviving at higher rates based on recent data. However, they warn the recent surge in COVID-19 cases may change this trend because of the strain on hospitals. (11/23/20)
Emily Oster, a professor of economics at Brown University, uses data to make the case that schools are not spreading COVID-19. (11/20/20)
NPR reports that more than 1,000 hospitals in the United States are short on staff, based on the most research Department of Health and Human Services data. (11/20/20)
David Kessler, a co-chair of President Elect Joe Biden COVID-19 team, states that his team does not have access to the internal official government datasets needed to make decisions about the pandemic. (11/17/20)
As the CDC leads the nation’s medical response to detect and track COVID-19 cases, it is looking for a cloud platform that can better centralize data reported by testing facilities. (11/3/20)
Pien Huang and Selena Simmons-Duffin author a piece for NPR on the withholding of COVID-19 hospitalization data in the United States. They explain that concealing this information from the public and the research community is a missed opportunity to help prevent outbreaks and even save lives. (10/30/20)
COVID-19 exposed structural issues with how the Hawaii Department of Health collects and shares health data and a gap in how the government officials approach data. The Honolulu Civil Beat cites an example of the department conducting contact tracing by collecting information faxed by doctors as an illustration of the need to update data sharing infrastructure. (9/30/20)
Nature authors a piece on the United States COVID-19 data crisis. Between the political meddling, disorganization, and poor public health data management, the country is missing crucial data needed to address the COVID-19 pandemic. (8/25/20)
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates describes how the absence of testing and COVID-19 data gaps contributed to a surge in US cases. (8/25/20)
The Dallas News explains that Collin County officials have added a disclaimer to their COVID-19 dashboard with the number of coronavirus cases, recoveries, and deaths because of their concerns about data accuracy from the Texas Department of State Health Services. (8/19/20)
Benjamin Freed from State Scoop discusses the glitch in Iowa’s coronavirus data platform, which caused a drop in new infections and positive COVID-19 test results. (8/18/20) *New*
The Texas Department of State Health Services explains that a coding error at Walgreens Pharmacy has misreported about 59,000 COVID-19 test results. As a result, Texas will likely see their COVID-19 statistics change. (8/17/20)
The Texas Tribune reports on last week’s dramatic changes to the Texas COVID-19 fatality toll that were a result of methodology changes and error corrections. These shifts in reported COVID-19 deaths have led some people to question the accuracy of the state’s data. (8/4/20)
Christine Vestal from Pew Trusts discusses how the dearth of public COVID-19 data is making it difficult for politicians to create sound policies regarding the pandemic. (8/3/20)
NPR criticizes the new Trump COVID-19 hospital data system and explains that the system is updated erratically and is rife with inconsistencies and errors. The reporting delays and problems with critical data could have profound consequences on the pandemic response. (7/31/20)
Philadelphia and Pennsylvania use different computer health reporting systems, resulting in discrepancies between data from the city and the state, particularly in the early days of the pandemic. (7/24/20)
Six months after the first COVID-19 cases appeared in the United States, most states are failing to report critical information needed to track and control the resurgence of the virus, according to an analysis released by a former top Obama administration health official. (7/21/20)
The Trump Administrations orders hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all patient information to a central database in Washington, threatening the transparency and accuracy of COVID-19 data. (7/14/20)
As the United States struggles to contain the COVID-19 pandemic health officials and policymakers are also forced to deal with a broken data system which sends incomplete results in difficult to download formats. (7/13/20)
Severe shortages of public health workers to perform contact tracing helped fuel coronavirus spikes in states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona and could make it harder to stamp out new hot spots, writes Politico. (6/28/20)
Well-designed data charts and visualizations can send a powerful message to the public, but they can also mislead their audience. Quartz explains what makes some charts and visualizations more misleading. (6/25/20)
Federal health officials are hoping to stretch COVID-19 testing supplies by combining samples from several people and running a single test. This method is called pool testing and could help reduce testing bottlenecks in the United States. (6/6/2020)
STAT explains the importance and value of COVID-19 data from hospital records and describes how difficult it is to clean up and make these data usable to researchers. (5/27/20)
Forbes discusses the inaccuracy of COVID-19 antibody tests and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s acknowledgment that less than half of those testing positive for antibodies truly have them. (5/26/20)
American states continue to face criticism for COVID-19 data cover-ups, writes NBC News. Government officials in several states are being questioned about the validity of their data as these data play a crucial role in whether a state can reopen. (5/25/20)
Article from the Miami Herald on the Florida governor’s removal of the state’s manager of their COVID-19 dashboard. The manager says that she was removed because she refused to manipulate the state’s COVID-19 data. (5/19/20)
Article from the Washington Post examining the tension between politics and numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic and the push by certain states to undercount COVID-19 cases and modify their COVID-19 numbers for political purposes. (5/19/20)
Georgia’s Department of Public Health is being criticized for sharing misleading data on COVID-19 cases. (5/18/20)
The Atlantic reports on inconsistencies between federal CDC data and state-reported data. Given the complexity and the multisource nature of the data, some differences are expected, however, large inconsistencies found in states such as Florida — where the state is reporting 31 percent fewer tests than the CDC — are worrisome. (5/17/20)
A lack of federal guidelines has caused variation in how US states are recording their COVID-19 data, which threatens the country’s ability to understand trends between states. (5/13/20)
COVID-19 social distancing measures have created a large demand for digital data collection methods. This article from the Business Standard explains how they might structurally change data collection methods for official statistics. (5/10/20)
Article from Mashable on the technical difficulties a contact tracing app from North Dakota encountered, including GPS and Wi-Fi tracking that consume a large amount of battery and how the location accuracy might not be high enough to record contacts with others. (5/6/20)
The City Lab discusses the problems with the US COVID-19 data: lack of testing capacity, poor implementation of standards, and sluggish reporting of data. (5/1/20)
Article from Wired on the perils of using bad data and overreacting to ‘preliminary’ findings from studies on COVID-19. (4/24/20)
FiveThirtyEight discusses the challenges with COVID-19 testing and how the variety of tests available affects data analysis for COVID-19. (4/21/20)
Scripps Research highlights the dearth of national COVID-19 testing and the dangers of making health policy decisions without data. (4/20/20)
Article from the New York Times on why we don’t know the true COVID-19 death rate. (4/17/20)
Buzzfeed reports on the accuracy and implementation issues with COVID-19 antibody tests. (4/15/20)
The Guardian reports on how challenges in collecting data, a patchwork of state tracking systems, and patients who die at home mean the true toll of Covid-19 on US healthcare workers is unknown. (4/15/20)
Cathy O’Neil writes an opinion piece for Bloomberg on the ten reasons to doubt the COVID-19 data. (4/13/20)
FiveThirtyEight takes a deep dive into how testing patterns can alter the accuracy of COVID-19 case counts. (4/4/20)
An editorial from the JAMA Network on raises the possibility of double counting of COVID-19 patients in data and analyses of the epidemic. (3/16/20)
This guide from the Atlantic discusses how to interpret and understand data on the outbreakat the state level. (3/12/20)
The Atlantic writes that the data on US cases of coronavirus might not be reliable. (3/3/20)

What are the capacity and psychological challenges to understanding COVID-19 data?

(sources)

The University of Minnesota finds that exposure to COVID-19 maps increases citizens’ knowledge about the pandemic but does not necessarily increase intent to adhere to health guidelines. (1/7/21)
The Atlantic authors a piece on cognitive dissonance to explore how Americans are making decisions about their actions during the COVID-19 pandemic. (7/12/20)
A professor of law and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, discusses the phycological challenges that emerge as states re-open. (7/6/20)
The Scientific American reports on how human evolution and our tribal origins affect how we see and respond to coronavirus data. (6/26/20)
Research published on the JAMA Network reveals the effect of cognitive bias on public health policy during the COVID-19 pandemic. (6/20/20)
Popular Science discusses how to dispel false information and communicate effectively to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic and the communication strategies that the United States learned from the H1N1 epidemic that should be put in place now. (5/14/20)
Article from The Walrus on how our brains are wired is making it more difficult for our societies to collectively react and stop the spread of COVID-19. (5/6/20)
The Jama Network published a study using the Internet Movie Database, an online database of film and TV information, to identify films with a major focus on infectious diseases and understand the major fears of pandemics. (4/24/20)
The Behavioral Scientist writes on the importance of epistemic humility and knowing the limits of your knowledge in a pandemic. (4/13/20)
An article from MIT Sloan Management Review on  how to make better decisions about COVID-19. (4/8/20)
The podcast You Are Not So Smart created an episode on how biases and psychology affect our reaction time and response to the spread of COVID-19. (4/5/20)
New York Magazine reports on  why it was hard for public health experts to raise the alarm on COVID-19. (3/26/20)
Psychology today published an article on why some people aren’t taking COVID-19 seriously. (3/26/20)
Article from the MIT Sloan School of Management on techniques to curtail the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 online. (3/23/20)
Four theories from the Atlantic on why COVID-19 data and news stories haven’t changed the bahaviors of some young people. (3/19/20)
Suggestions from CNN on how to write emails and content about COVID-19 so that people will read and understand them. (3/13/20)
Forbes article on how politics and biases affected the ability for decision makers to correctly interpret and take action on coronavirus data. (3/2/20)
This Bloomberg article discusses the probability neglect bias that causes people to misinterpret COVID-19 data. (2/28/20)
Psychology today article on some of the different ways our brain interprets the numbers on COVID-19. (2/27/20)

What resources are available to understand COVID-19 data around the world?

(sources)

An analysis of a dataset on the first COVID-19 wave from Madurai, India, finds that even though Madurai tested at a higher rate than the Indian average, the city likely captured only 1.4% of infections and only 11% of deaths among those aged 15+. (8/16/21)
COVID-19 has continued to highlight the importance of well-functioning CRVS systems. Will Brown and Simon Townsley report on Sudan’s hidden COVID-19 death toll and the consequences of a poorly functioning CRVS system. (8/3/21)
A new Center for Global Development paper reveals significant underreporting of COVID-19 deaths in India. They use state data, international estimates, serological studies, and household surveys to quantify excess deaths from all causes during the pandemic. (7/23/21)
ODIHQ has a live repository of resources for collecting remote primary data during COVID-19. The materials come from books, journal articles, newspaper articles and include experiences of doing participatory, qualitative, and quantitative research. (6/2/21)
The ODIHQ released a new report that looks at the impact of COVID-19 on teachers’ and pupils’ lives through the lens of new data made available to the ODI. (3/31/21)
UNICEF analyzes school closures and enrollment rates during COVID-19 and finds that the most vulnerable are paying the heaviest price. (3/1/21)
The Guardian writes that Australian researchers find that anonymized Facebook mobility data could be a helpful tool in tracking where and how COVID-19 is spreading. (1/5/21)
New numbers released by Statistics Canada point to deadly knock-on effects of the pandemic, even for the parts of the population less vulnerable to infection from the virus itself. (1/4/21)
New data from the United Kingdom indicate that people infected with the new COVID-19 variant may be 70% more likely to transmit the virus to one of their contacts, reports the BBC. (12/20/20)
Devex authors a piece on why more regional data on the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa is needed to understand how it affects the continent and countries differently. (9/20/20)
The Gates Foundation presents its latest findings, which show the detrimental impact of COVID-19 on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. (9/15/20)
Tim Harford explains his five lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the effect of missing data and disinformation during the pandemic. (9/10/20)
Southern Voice compiled over 500 articles, reports, podcasts, and more on the COVID-19 pandemic. This knowledge hub offers access to an extensive number of sources from think tanks across the Global South.
The Gates Foundation 2020 Goalkeepers report analyzes the damage COVID-19 has had on progress to the Sustainable Development Goals and argues for a collaborative response as there’s no national solution to a global crisis. (9/1/20)
The Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities releases a report on how, from a statistical perspective, COVID-19 is changing our society and affecting public and private life. (9/1/20)
The British Medical Journal discusses whether doctors should recommend treatments and vaccines when full data are not publicly available. Doctors Peter Doshi and David Healy argue that without transparent data, they will not endorse COVID-19 products. (8/24/20)
Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary of the UK, mandated an investigation into Public Health England (PHE) methodology for collecting daily death statistics. The research led to a 5,377 person decrease in COVID-19 related deaths. (8/12/20)
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) publishes a new assessment to guide UNDP country offices, UN agencies, countries, and other partners to make sure that gender is considered when conducting socio-economic impact assessments, which are critical and provide valuable information for fighting COVID-19 pandemic. (7/28/20)
The Africa COVID-19 Community Vulnerability Index assesses which geographic areas may struggle to handle a COVID-19 outbreak. The overall index focuses on seven themes, age; epidemiological factors; fragility; strength of health systems; population density; socioeconomic factors; and access to transportation and housing.
Data show that this first wave of COVID-19 is far from over, writes Wired. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week, “in most of the world, the virus is not under control…it is getting worse.” (7/15/20)
The United Nations Statistics Division releases the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020 which reviews the progress of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development amid the COVID-19 crisis. The report analyzes available data and tracks the progress towards the SDGs before and after the pandemic started. (7/8/20)
The Guardian provides advice on interpreting COVID-19 data and analyzes trends for critical COVID-19 indicators in the United Kingdom. (7/5/20)
Open Data Watch reports on findings on the interest in and demand for COVID-19 data by monitoring the online mentions of coronavirus datasets, website traffic for coronavirus data, and traffic to ODW’s coronavirus data products. (6/26/20)
The Guardian reports on the relationship between lockdown measures and increases in coronavirus cases. (6/25/20)
Devex explains why data engagement is key to maintaining transparency and efficiency, especially as significant quantities of aid are being quickly distributed to handle the COVID-19 health crisis. (6/24/20)
The New York Times authors a piece on the increase of bots and misinformation on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. (6/16/20)
The World Bank Group conducted a study to spatially visualize the shifting gravity of the pandemic by using an idea and method from Quah to track how the center of gravity of a variable is shifting over time. (6/9/20)
A new analysis of COVID-19 data for 58 cities in China shows that for each day a city delayed in implementing social distancing, a coronavirus outbreak added 2.4 to the length of an outbreak. (6/2/20)
The Washington post reports on efforts from researchers trying to crack the code to why COVID-19 appears deadlier in the US and Europe than in Asia. (5/28/20)
This article from Development Initiatives presents a comprehensive review of the global financial system’s response to the pandemic and the funding instruments institutions are using to tackle COVID-19. (5/26/20)
The United Nations and other partner organizations of the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities release a statistical report on COVID-19’s economic, social, regional, and statistical impacts. (5/13/20)
Vox reports that Mexico’s coronavirus cases are likely 17 times higher than officially reported. The article discusses whether this inaccuracy is due to case-counting inefficiency or deliberate obfuscation. (5/13/20)
The podcast More or Less: Behind the Stats explains how the COVID-19 fatality rate is calculated, how dangerous the virus actually is, and why it is so hard to calculate this vital statistic. (5/9/20)
The World Economic Forum explains how the COVID-19 mortality rate can be misleading. (5/6/20)
Fake news during COVID-19: how misinformation is spreading online during the pandemic. (5/5/20)
VoxEU publishes a column with an analysis of the death registry data of the seven most severely hit regions in Italy. (4/22/20)
The Brussels Times explains how the death registration system in Belgium is affecting their mortality rate. (4/20/20)
The World Health Initiative released international guidelines for certification and classification of COVID-19 as a cause of death. (4/16/20)
International Science Council explains the long-term data ecosystem changes that could emerge from the COVID-19 crisis. (4/10/20)
A COVID-19 pilot survey from IDinsight finds signs of economic distress outside India’s metropolitan areas.(4/10/20)
A research team from the George Washington University explains the role of Twitter in shaping the conversation around COVID-19. (4/6/20)
The Economist conducts a statistical analysis on the link between COVID-19 cases and political events in China. (4/7/20)
The International Labour Organization publishes a report for national statistical offices (NSOs) with guidance on statistical operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically focused on labor statistics and national Labor Force Surveys (LFS). (4/1/20)
Devex explains the dangers of misinformation during COVID-19 with a special focus on India. (3/23/20)
Fortune outlines some of the major findings from Korean COVID-19 data, which is some of the best in the world due to the country’s focus on testing. (3/19/20)
The BBC podcast More or Less: Behind the Stats takes a deep dive into Iran’s COVID-19 data. (3/14/20)

What resources are available to understand COVID-19 data specifically with regard to the heterogeneous response in the US?

(Due to the volume of US-specific sources, they have been collected separately below)

Deborah Birx, the former White House coronavirus response coordinator, reveals in an interview with Face the Nation that Trump relied on a parallel stream of unofficial COVID-19 data that was not coming from Dr. Birx to make decisions. (1/24/21)
AP news reports that California Governor Gavin Newsom, an advocate for open data and data driven decision making for the pandemic, has refused to release data being used to determine when the latest stay at home order will be lifted for fear it will be used to mislead the public. (1/22/21)
The Biden-Harris Administration publishes an executive order that ensures and promotes a data-driven response to COVID-19 and future health threats. (1/21/21)
President Biden releases a national strategy for the COVID-19 response describing the importance of a data-driven response and increasing data collection and collaboration to mitigate the pandemic. (1/21/21)
Vox news has developed four maps that help explain state-level COVID-19 data in the United States. (12/2/2020)
Facebook’s Data for Good initiative has developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to make projections about the rate of spread of COVID-19. The algorithm predicts that San Diego will experience more than 12,000 cases in the next two weeks. (11/23/20)
Farhad Manjoo authors a piece for the New York Times and explains how large your COVID-19 “bubble” really is by tracing his contacts. (11/20/20)
Even though the United States is conducting more COVID-19 tests every day, the Wall Street Journal finds that increased testing doesn’t fully explain recent case surges across the nation. (11/10/20)
WebMD reports on the lack of national strategies for reporting COVID-19 data in the United States and interoperability issues with the data. As different states and municipalities are each developing their own dashboards and data systems, it is making it difficult to make comparisons between them. (9/22/20)
County-level data on COVID-19 reveals disparities among the patient population. This study from US News and World Report finds that patients who suffer from diabetes and obesity are more at risk of dying from the virus. (9/22/20)
Time publishes a statistical analysis of recent COVID-19 data that shows an alarming increase in COVID-19 cases and a possible third wave in the United States. (8/28/20)
The Trump Administration wants to change how local and state health departments report and provide COVID-19 data to the public. Many people wonder why President Trump is launching such an initiative during a pandemic, especially when local and state systems are already so busy and if HHS will be able to take on such a large project. (8/19/20)
The Florida Department of Health received a backlog of testing data from Niznik Lab Corp in Miami that dates data back to June 23rd. The lab reported over 4,000 cases occurring over the past weeks. This caused a daily jump in the data that was misleading. (8/13/20)
In North Carolina, inaccurate data has been reported since late April because of a LabCorp reporting error, reports the Charlotte Observer. To adjust the current COVID-19 data dashboard, they have lowered the stated number of COVID-19 tests by over 200,000. (8/12/20)
STAT explains that errors behind Donald Trump’s statement, that COVID-19 testing “creates more cases”, by examining the number of people tested and the number who tested positive for the disease (cases) in every state and Washington, DC. (7/20/20)
Ryan Panchadsaram, from the MIT Technology Review, explains that sharing reliable data is one of the most economical and effective interventions against COVID-19 in the United States, and while it may be a partisan affair, he reminds us that COVID-19 is not a bureaucratic preserve but a public resource. (7/17/20)
The Washington Post reports on the disappearance of COVID-19 hospitalization data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. (7/16/20)
Slate deciphers why some conservatives believe that COVID-19 hospitalization numbers in Florida are inflated. (7/10/20)
Derek Thompson, a staff writer at The Atlantic, explores the gap between the peeking number of COVID-19 cases in the US and the confounding decline in deaths. (7/9/20)
A Florida sheriff, Mike Chitwood from Volusia County Sheriff Department, speaks up about the state abruptly cutting off his access to data on local cases of COVID-19 infections. (7/9/20)
The Florida Gorvenor, Ron DeSantis refused to release COVID-19 hospitalization data, just as dozens of hospitals in Florida have reported hitting 100% ICU capacity. (7/8/20)
NPR highlights five main takeaways from an analysis of county-level data in the United States. The analysis suggests that a statewide lockdown in Arizona and Florida might be necessary to stop the spread of COVID-19 in those states. (7/3/20)
According to an analysis of federal data by The Washington Post, in addition to COVID-19 deaths, the fear of seeking care in hospitals may have also caused thousands of deaths. (7/2/2020)
The Governor of Florida announces that he will report the number of current COVID-19-related hospitalizations for all counties, an indicator that is critical for public health experts monitor the severity of the virus’s spread and the strain on hospital systems. (7/1/20)
The Washington Post authors a piece on how misinformation disseminated by Fox News about the spread and threat of COVID-19 in America delayed and interfered with a prompt and adequate response to the pandemic. (6/28/20)
Pew Research found that a growing number of Americans believe that the COVID-19 pandemic is over despite the growing number of new daily cases in the United States. (6/27/20)
A study finds that discussions on COVID-19 in the United States are so politically divided that even artificial intelligence can sense them. An algorithm developed by researchers at The Ohio State University can correctly identify a member of congress’s political affiliation based on the text and date of their COVID-19 discussions on twitter. (6/26/20)
The Trump administration has doubled down on its claims that COVID-19 case counts are up because the US has increased testing. However, a closer look at graphs of testing numbers and positive cases shows that this isn’t the case for many states, write ProPublica. (6/25/20)
The MIT Technology Review authors a piece on how publicly available datasets are guiding public policy and economic recovery during this health crisis. (6/25/20)
Government experts from the Centers for Diseases Control in the US believe that more than 20 million Americans could have contracted COVID-19, ten times more than official counts, indicating many people without symptoms have or have had the disease. (6/25/20)
Vox provides an analysis on why COVID-19 cases in Georgia haven’t increased since the state reopened. (6/4/20)
A four-day study at the end of April swabbed and drew blood from 4,160 adults and children in the heart of the Mission District in San Francisco, one of the city’s most densely populated and heavily Latinx neighborhoods. The results showed that the virus is mainly striking low-wage workers. (5/28/20)
The New York Times highlights the stark differences and realities of red and blue states in the US during the pandemic. The staggering American death toll has affected the entire country but is hitting blue states harder. (5/25/20)
The Surgo Foundation analyzes location data to understand current traffic in parks, churches, transit stations, malls, mosques, and supermarkets in over a hundred cities in low- and middle-income countries. (5/20/20)
The COVID Tracking Project authors an assessment of the CDC’s new COVID-19 data dashboard which includes national and state-level (5/18/20)
As states are lifting shelter-in-place orders to allow businesses to reopen, Andy Slavitt, a health-care official in the Obama administration, reminds us that there is not enough up-to-date reporting on the effect of reopening states. The American states reopening in May might not see spikes until June. (5/15/20)
A state by state analysis of the COVID-19 death toll reveals that 100,000 to 110,000 Americans have already died as a result of the pandemic, rather than the 83,000 whose deaths have been attributed to the disease, COVID-19. (5/13/20)
Article from the Harvard Business Review on what COVID-19 data can be trusted and the common red flags that come with unreliable data. (5/8/20)
Forbes interviews Yaneer Bar-Yam, Professor and President of New England Complex Systems Institute, on how to interpret and use COVID-19 data to create policy. (5/7/20)
The New York Times reports on a genetic analysis showing that outbreaks around the United States were likely started by people traveling from New York City. (5/7/20)
While the Trump administration has raised concerns that the United States COVID-19 death toll is being exaggerated, many experts believe that the suspected COVID-19 cases are being undercounted. This Axios article explains both sides of the argument. (5/6/20)
Adjusting for population size and agreeing on the definition of a ‘Covid death’ can have important policy implications, writes Neil Monnery in an article for the London School of Economics and Political Science Business Review. (5/6/20)
Visualization from the New York Times comparing the death tolls between US states – using both reported and excess death figures – demonstrates that death toll counts show great variation between states. (5/5/20)
Playable simulations to explain the spread of COVID-19 and review future scenarios on how lockdowns, contact tracing, masks, and vaccines might help the world end this pandemic. (5/1/20)
The Jama Network published a piece on the variation in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths across the New York City boroughs, featuring a list of 163 infection-related search terms that may prove useful for other research on epidemics. (4/29/20)
The Scientific American writes about the difference between COVID-19 and flu death counts, the former are actual numbers; the latter are inflated statistical estimates. (4/28/20)
The Brookings Institute reviews how data science can be used to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. (4/27/20)
The British Medical Journal reports on the crucial data on the transmission patterns of COVID-19 that came from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. (4/27/20)
Discussion from the blog Marginal Revolution on how to understand data on the “R0” — which refers to how many other people one sick person is likely to infect on average. (4/20/20)
Nature publishes a study on recent antibody tests that suggest that coronavirus infections vastly exceed official counts. (4/17/20)
The Atlantic discusses how data on the test-positivity rate for COVID-19 in America helps to understand the prevalence of the virus. (4/16/20)
Vox presents data on how social distancing has helped to flatten the curve in New York City. (4/15/20)
The New York Times reports on how a change in the methods for counting COVID-19 deaths has increased the official death toll for New York City. (4/14/20)
Wired article on how big data and blind spots in location-tracking data could undermine the COVID-19 response. (4/12/20)
The New York Times on how solving the mystery of “superspreaders” could help control the coronavirus pandemic. (4/12/20)
The World Economic Forum has a discussion with a datavisualization expert on five good techniques for compiling charts with COVID-19 data. (4/8/20)
How to read COVID-19 graphs and understand what it means to “flatten the curve.”(4/7/20)
Science Magazine interviews the team behind Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 dashboardabout how they started the dashboard and the challenges keeping it updated. (4/6/20)
ESRI releases a podcast on how advanced analytics can accelerate our understanding of COVID-19 and how data science can help us respond to pandemics. (3/31/20)
The podcast Radiolab recorded stories on how to better understand the numbers and science behind COVID-19. (3/27/20)
Nature reports on how the data from the Diamond Princess cruise ship provides a natural experiment on the spread of COVID-19. (3/26/20)
StatNews surveys the experience of Asian countries that have succeeded in reducing the spread of the coronavirus and asks, “Can these techniques be applied elsewhere? Is it too late in places like the United Kingdom and the United States?” (3/20/20)
Wired interview with the epidemiologist, Larry Brilliant, on how we defeat COVID-19 and the case for more testing and data. (3/19/20)
A Stanford Epidemiologist describes the need for representative sampling and testing for COVID-19 to understand and fight the virus. (3/17/20)
The New York Times reports on how the Imperial College of London report on the spread of COVID-19 moved the US and the UK to action. (3/17/20)

What data resources are available to understand the vaccination process and logistics of delivering vaccines?

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This Center for Global Development blog explains how robust data enables decision-makers to make informed decisions about vaccine distribution and better allocate resources. (12/20/21) *New*
The UNICEF Vaccine Market Dashboard tracks COVAX shipments. Recent updates show that Kenya received 407,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, donated by the United Kingdom.
Stat News interviews Nicole Lurie, the U.S. Director of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and focuses on the hurdles to developing COVID-19 vaccines and studying booster approaches. (9/7/21)
The Multilateral Leaders Taskforce on COVID-19 is working to accelerate access and delivery of vaccines. They are compiling data on dose requests, contracts, deliveries, and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries. (8/17/21)
SDGs Today and Duke Ghic’s new dashboard follows worldwide COVID-19 vaccine purchases, presenting data on vaccine procurement and a breakdown of the population that can be vaccinated.
Health Affairs analyzes all 50-state health department COVID-19 vaccine websites to understand issues regarding information distribution. This is a critical initiative, especially as vaccination efforts expand. (3/4/2021)
BBC has created a podcast series – led by Tim Harford – that discusses with scientists and experts the distribution challenges of the COVID-19 vaccine.
STAT News compares the vaccine efficacy and target population for the COVID-19 vaccines, including Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. (2/2/21)
The New York Times authors a piece about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the concerns of its efficacy in combating the highly contagious South African variant. (1/29/21)
Bloomberg explains their methodology and analysis for the COVID-19 tracker. The page is updated frequently with new vaccine developments
Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland author a piece for the New York Times about the difficulty in increasing the immediate supply of vaccines before April due to manufacturing capacity problems. (1/26/21)
According to data collected by Bloomberg, more than 15.9 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in 37 countries. (1/6/21)
Due to a lag in Bloomberg data, the number of people vaccinated may be higher than reported; however, about 4 million doses are still sitting around somewhere in the United States. (1/4/21)
Our World in Data has created a webpage filled with answers to commonly asked COVID-19 vaccine questions.
The University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy and West Health Policy Center has developed the first county-level mapping analysis on which areas in the United States may face difficulties accessing the COVID-19 vaccine. Research finds that more than 35 percent of US counties have fewer than two vaccine facilities. (12/16/20)
Bart de Langhe authors a piece for the Harvard Business Review on the dangers of focusing solely on vaccine efficacy results in November. (12/11/20)
Nature Research explains that COVID-19 vaccines will highlight the need for access to open data. (12/8/20)
As governments worldwide go on a buying spree for COVID-19 vaccines, a group of scientists and health experts raise concerns that data on gender differences and the virus are not being gathered. (12/4/20)
A center at the Milken Institute, FasterCures, is tracking the development of treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 through a dashboard that features their most recent developments, their research stage, and how they work.
The Washington Post has compiled a list of 200 experimental COVID-19 vaccines to keep track of recent developments. This page is updated daily.
The COVID-NMA is an international research initiative supported by WHO and Cochrane. The initiative has developed a live map of COVID-19 vaccine trials.
The New York Times has created a tracker that provides users with an estimation of their place in the vaccination distribution line by using their location and demographic information.
Stats News has created a tracker with the most recent efforts to treat or prevent COVID-19 infection, with details about the science, history, and timeline for each treatment.
Nature reports that according to estimates from the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, some low-income countries might only gain access to the vaccine in 2023 or 2024. (11/30/20)
The Wall Street Journal explains that as vaccines start getting distributed, the best way to understand its result will be to continue developing data analysis tools and monitoring the outcome. (11/29/20)
The BMJ blog advocates for defining a standard protocol on what data need to be released before a COVID-19 vaccine is manufactured. (11/27/20)
Aljazeera answers a few questions about the COVID-19 vaccines using maps and charts. (11/24/20)
The World Economic Forum explains how to use blockchain to monitor the supply for the COVID-19 vaccine. (11/20/20)
Health Affairs authors a piece on equitable distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine in the United States and outlines the challenges and opportunities. (11/19/20)
Science Magazine reviews the news about the Pfizer vaccine and discusses the other 50 other COVID-19 vaccines that are in clinical trials, nine of which have reached the efficacy phase. (11/9/20)
The World Health Organization publishes a piece on vaccine distribution and highlights high- priority groups that should receive the vaccine first. (10/28/20)
Palantir Technologies, a data-mining company, is working with the federal government to track the manufacturing and the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. (10/22/20)
Science Direct authors a piece on the importance of patient-relevant data during clinical trials to validate the clinical-trial analyses. (10/14/20)
Geraghty, the Chief Medical Officer and Health Solutions Director at Esri, discusses GIS’s role in vaccine distribution. She explains that real-time data sharing and analysis will be vital to distributing an equitable and speedy distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. (9/24/20)
An article in Nature states that while wealthy countries have struck many deals to buy more than two billion doses of coronavirus vaccine, low- and middle-income countries are struggling to gain access to COVID-19 vaccines. (8/24/20)

What new data sources are being used to provide context to official COVID-19 sources of data?

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USAFacts explains how the CDC uses the National Vital Statistics System together with death information from every state to count COVID-19 deaths. (10/25/21) *New*
The Mo Ibrahim Foundation report analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on Africa and the importance of data for mitigation and recovery efforts. *New*
Richard Benjamins, Jeanine Vos, and Stefaan Verhulst review a set of open access articles on Telco big data analytics to fight the spread of COVID-19. (10/6/21)
Statistical modeling from The Economist suggests the global number of COVID-19 deaths could be as much as four times higher in a video that they have created to understand excess death tallies. (5/14/21)
The Washington Post explored crematorium statistics in India and found a wide divergence from official COVID-19 death tallies. (5/6/2021)
A World Bank blog reports on the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study program that has been supporting High-Frequency Phone Surveys in Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda to better understand the impact of COVID-19. (3/9/21)
Researchers demonstrate how online search data can help inform the COVID-19 policy repose in the journal Nature. (2/8/21)
Understanding Patient Data publishes new research on COVID-19 media coverage reported in the United Kingdom in the past 18 months. (2/3/2021)
ONS statistician Sarah Crofts explains that even with fewer people testing positive in England, the level of COVID-19 infection is over one million people. (1/22/21)
All 54 African countries put together have registered fewer COVID-19 deaths than France. The New York Times explains why that does not mean people are not dying from the virus. (1/4/21)
The United Nations Statistics Division summarizes findings from the third round of their survey on disruptions to National Statistical Offices’ (NSOs) operations during the pandemic. The survey offers a glimpse into the long-term impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic will have on NSOs’ operations. (12/17/20)
The University of Saskatchewan collects data on wastewater and found that SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA is increasing. Based on this finding, they predict a drastic increase in COVID-19 cases. (11/19/20)
The World Bank discusses a collaboration between the Uganda Bureau of Statistics and the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement, which aims to disseminate microdata and survey reports from the second round of the Uganda High-Frequency Phone Survey on COVID-19. (11/13/20)
A PARIS21 brief by Julie Magdalene and Archita Misra explains how data ecosystems can help overcome the trust deficit between citizens and their governments in a post-COVID-19 era. (9/21/20)
The latest United Nations Data Forum blog by Cameron Allen, Senior Advisor to SDSN TReNDS, discusses how COVID-19 is changing national statistical systems. (9/14/2020)
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine releases a dataset about the environments that have led to significant clusters of COVID-19 cases,containing more than 250 records with date, location, if the event was indoors or outdoors, and how many individuals became infected. (7/24/20)
The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data explains how COVID-19 has intensified gaps in death registration systems in Asia and the Pacific. This dearth of data is especially apparent in low-income countries and could be obscuring the gendered impact of the pandemic. (7/17/20)
The European Union Science Hub publishes a report on the concept of data-driven Mobility Functional Areas (MFAs). They demonstrate how mobile data calculated at a European regional scale can be useful for informing policies related to COVID-19 and future outbreaks. (7/16/20)
The Open Data Institute addresses the value of mobility data in understanding the impact government restrictions have on the movement on people during COVID-19. (7/15/20)
To get a clearer picture of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Nigeria, the Daily Beast spoke with grave diggers in the country who are seeing a spike in the number of graves they dig. (6/29/20)
Bloomberg Law analyzes mobile phone record data to show how attendees of Trump’s rally in Tulsa came from hot spots around Oklahoma and could potentially spread the virus throughout the state and in Tulsa. (6/26/20)
UN Forum calls for greater investments in official statistics and empowerment of data users. This will be crucial to ensure no one is left behind post COVID-19. (6/21/20)
COVID-19 has revealed major gaps in official statistics all over the world. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) explains how integrating geospatial data with national statistics can help understand the spatial behavior of a global phenomenon like a pandemic. (6/16/20)
A study published in The Lancet on the use of the Demographic and Health Survey framework as a population surveillance strategy for COVID-19. (4/29/20)
The Digital Impact Alliance explains why mobile phone data is important in countries where national statistics may be under resourced. (4/28/20)
UN Legal Identity Agenda authors a piece on COVID-19 to support civil registration and vital statistics during this time.
The satellite navigation company, TomTom, created a traffic index for hundreds of cities, based in part on data from satellite navigation systems, to analyze the effect of government lockdowns. (4/27/20)
The Financial Times conducts an analysis of mortality statistics during the pandemic in 14 countries and finds a high number of excess deaths, a signal of under reporting of COVID-19. (4/26/20)
The CoRisk-Index, developed by researchers at the University of Oxford, uses data mining techniques to identify industry-specific risk assessments related to COVID-19 in real-time. (4/24/20)
Learn how the Korean government used mobile data and timely COVID-19 test results data to develop health policy and combat the spread of COVID-19. (4/22/20)
The Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health initiative released a data for COVID-19 series and a special episode on rapid mortality surveillance. (4/22/20)
Report from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean on quantifying the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the short and medium term. (4/21/20)
Wired article on crowdsourcing applications to predict new COVID-19 hotspots. (4/20/20)
The World Economic Forum explains how governments are using the data collected on self-reporting COVID-19 tracking appsfor policy design. (4/15/20)
Apple publishes a dataset derived from aggregated, anonymized information from their navigation app. (4/14/20)
One of the United States’ best flu-forecasting labs, tapped by the CDC to help predict the pandemic, is relying on Facebook and Google for some of their most important data. (4/9/20)
The BBC discusses the problems two universities have faced while trying to develop apps that listen to users’ coughs and voices to predict whether they are infected with the coronavirus. (4/8/20)
An article from Slate explaining the difficulties using the smart thermometer data from Kinsato track the spread of COVID-19. (4/6/20)
A data scientist describes how to use Google search data to understand the symptoms of COVID-19 and reveals a new possible symptom found from his own research. (4/5/20)
The Washington post on how Google is tapping its vast trove of location data to aid the global effort to combat COVID-19. (4/3/20)
An article in Nature on how wastewater testing could also be used as an early-warning sign of COVID-19. (4/3/20)
Center for Empirical Research in Economics and Behavioral Sciences sets up the COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO) initiative that surveys 1,000 participants weekly to understand public perceptions of the pandemic, providing timely information on the German public’s response to COVID-19. (3/27/20)
A study written by a mixed group of experts discusses how mobile phone data can guide government and public health authorities in determining the best course of action to control the COVID-19 pandemic. (3/27/20)
Tech Crunch reports on data from Kinsa’s smart thermometers being used to create a map of fevers across the United States. Anomalies and spikes in the instances of fevers in this dataset could show an increase in cases of COVID-19. (3/23/20)
Story from Wired on using satellite, internet, and traffic data to check the veracity of official COVID-19 data. (3/20/20)

What models are being used to predict the spread of COVID-19 and what are the challenges in using them?

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A team at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland has developed a tool that assesses individual mortality risks from COVID-19 using publicly available data.
Scott Murray, of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society authors a piece for MIT News about a web-friendly modeling tool that helps organizations develop COVID-19 testing strategies that are affordable and effective. (12/15/20)
Nature authors a piece on big data and simple models used to track the spread of COVID-19 in cities. They highlight the importance of mobile phone data to track human contact in cities to model the infection risks and explain disparities. (11/10/20)
The Scientist shares some big data and collaboration projects seeking to fight COVID-19. (7/21/20)
Alan Hudson, the Executive Director of Global Integrity, explores the values and limits of modeling and discusses how adaptive learning and a systems are critical to developing an effective policy response to fight the spread of COVID-19. (7/16/20)
The Harvard Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation publishes a case study from Chelsea, Massachusetts to explain how cities can use housing data to predict the next COVID-19 hotspots. (6/17/20)
FiveThirtyEight explains how COVID-19 models project different fatality numbers and why it is crucial to use look at multiple models, even when they disagree, to understand how different assumptions affects the models’ projections. (5/29/20)
Early projections of COVID-19 in America underestimated its severity, reports The Economist. By luck or by design, the projections from models have improved markedly from the beginning of the pandemic. (5/23/20)
The World Economic Forum authors a piece on the lessons learned from COVID-19 modeling and the effect they have on the behavior of health officials, policymakers, and citizens. (5/12/20)
FiveThirtyEight has assembled six models published by infectious disease researchers to illustrate possible trajectories of the pandemic’s death toll to make the models more accessible and highlight how the assumptions underlying the models can lead to vastly different estimates. (5/10/20)
YouTube video from the SciShow on why estimates from epidemiological models can appear to be inaccurate: If a model’s predictions end up being wrong, that might be a positive outcome and signify that the model’s predictions changed policies and behaviors in a way that reduced the death toll. (5/6/20)
Arizona State Health Department tells university COVID-19 modeling teams at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona to stop work and limit data access. Although the reasons for this were not stated, some speculate that the results from their models challenge the state’s decision to open. (5/5/20)
The Boston Review on how COVID-19 has revealed a contest between two competing philosophies of scientific knowledge: models and evidence. To manage the crisis and forecast the spread of COVID-19, we must draw on both. (5/5/20)
This article from Vox reviews the problems with the IHME model that the White House has been using to guide its COVID-19 response and asks the question why are we still relying on it? (5/2/20)
The New York Magazine discusses the complications using COVID-19 models for long-term forecasting. (5/2/20)
Article from Apolitical on the four key questions policymakers should ask COVID-19 modelers to understand their projections and develop the appropriate policy responses. (4/28/20)
Brookings calls for a new generation of COVID-19 models to support policymakers. (4/23/20)
Academic paper on predicting COVID-19 outbreaks with machine learning. (4/22/20)
The New York Times authors a piece on how five different COVID-19 models explain what this next month will look like. (4/22/20)
Academic paper from Cornell University on the difficulty forecasting the spread of COVID-19. (4/19/20)
Academic paper modeling COVID-19 transmission rates in different locations. (4/19/20)
A professor and infectious disease modeler explains to FiveThirtyEight the value of models to provide insight on the spread of COVID-19. (4/17/20)
The gaming company, Improbable, is lending its simulation technology to improve COVID-19 models. (4/14/20)
The Washington Post on how models can be used to help the world avoid the worst possible outcomes from COVID-19. (4/14/20)
CNN interviews experts to respond to predictions from a model being used by the White House that the COVID-19 pandemic will ‘peter out’ in May. (4/13/20)
A cartoon from FiveThirtyEight on the difficulties of creating and releasing models on COVID-19 to the public. (4/13/20)
The Scientific American reports on the importance of providing context and information on the unknowns behind the data that go into models. (4/11/20)
Mathematica has curated a list of resources on COVID-19 models and policies.
The Washington Post describes the new updates to the United States’ COVID-19 model that has revised its estimates of COVID-19 casualties. (4/8/20)
The Atlantic reports on the importance of understanding models as predictions with their own biases and faults and not crystal balls into the future. (4/2/30)
Vox writes about the White House’s new model for the spread of COVID-19 in the United States. (3/31/20)
Researchers at the Imperial College London estimate the potential impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as social distancing, in 11 European countries using data from the European Centre of Disease Control (ECDC). (3/30/20)
This study from IHME uses a statistical model to present the first set of estimates of predicted health service utilization and deaths due to COVID-19 by day for the next 4 months for each state in the United States. (3/26/20)
Our World in Data, an online publication based at the University of Oxford, announced on Tuesday that it had stopped relying on World Health Organization (WHO) data for its models, citing errors and other factors. (3/25/20)
Article in Science magazine on how models affect public policy decisions. (3/25/20)
Ben Sparks provides a simple explanation of the so-called SIR Model being used to predict the spread of COVID-19. (3/25/20)
Models from the Imperial College of London on the likely impact of public health measures on the spread of COVID-19. (3/17/20)
The Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team’s model is described here with results of their simulations of non-pharmaceutical interventions on healthcare demand. (3/16/20)

What data are available on how COVID-19 affects different racial and ethnic groups? What do they reveal about the inequities of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic?

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Statistics South Africa is using the Vulnerability Index Dashboard, an online mapping tool, to analyze data on the vulnerability of South Africa’s citizens according to their location. (11/18/21) *New*
CEPEI’s COVID-19 Data and Innovation Centre analyzes the fluctuation of labor markets in the Global South amid COVID-19 and its effect on vulnerable populations
SDG Integration at UNDP wrote a UN Data Forum blog on data’s role in developing an equitable recovery from COVID-19. (10/7/21)
Surgo Ventures has created a vulnerability index mapped to state and local levels, helping planners and responders identify which communities will need the most support alleviating the effects of COVID-19.
Tableau Foundation released the Racial Equity Data Hub to understand better the unique impacts and challenges communities of color have faced during COVID-19. (4/23/2021)
Early data on vaccine distribution shows that Black and Hispanic people make up a disproportionately small number of people among those who have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. (1/28/21)
Hannah Recht and Lauren Weber find that Black Americans are receiving COVID-19 vaccinations at drastically lower rates than white Americans in the first weeks of the vaccination rollout. (1/17/21)
The Trevor Project releases a research brief on COVID-19 and suicide risk among LGBTQ and youth. (1/15/21)
Layal Liverpool authors a piece for the New Scientist on the importance of publishing vaccine data disaggregated by ethnicity and other demographics to ensure that those hit hardest by the pandemic are not left behind. (1/15/21)
Amy Kristin Sanders of the University of Texas at Austin advocates for more transparency of death records in the United States to better understand how the pandemic has affected low-income Americans, incarcerated populations, and people of color. (12/31/20)
Lizzie Wade, an advocate for American Indians and Alaska Natives’ ethical inclusion in public health data, highlights data gaps in national COVID-19 data reporting. She explains that data gaps hide the disproportionate toll the virus has taken on many Indigenous communities. (9/24/20)
Only four states report demographic data on COVID-19 testing or case counts among incarcerated people: Vermont, Tennessee, Massachusetts, and Washington. This makes it challenging to understand crucial racial information. (8/20/20)
A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine reviews 49,000 COVID-19 cases over two months in 12 US states and finds that Black, Hispanic, American Indian, and Alaskan Native patients are more likely to be hospitalized because of COVID-19 than white patients. (8/19/20)
A new national study uses county-level data to assess the relationship between community-level inequalities and the COVID-19 pandemic and finds that neighborhood income and other structural factors have significant impacts on whether an individual in the area has been infected with or died from COVID-19. (8/5/20)
An analysis of COVID-19 data from Health IT Analytics finds that infection rates among pediatric patients reflect the same racial and ethnic disparities seen in adult populations. (8/5/20)
Science Magazine reports a huge data gap in how COVID-19 is affecting low-income areas. These data are crucial to resource allocation and mitigation of racial disparities. (7/10/20)
New federal data provides the most comprehensive look at the racial inequity of COVID-19. The New York Times reports on some of the findings from the new dataset. (7/5/20)
Preliminary research using geolocation data suggests that the Black Lives Matter protests, which have continued for weeks, have not had an impact on the virus’s spread. (7/2/20)
The National Academy for State Health Policy created a dashboard on which states are reporting case and mortality data by race and ethnicity data on a state, zip code, or community level.
Health officials need data-driven strategies to combat racial disparities amid the pandemic, but detailed data linking race to COVID-19 is lacking. (6/20/20)
Digital Health explains why the collection and recording of ethnicity data to inform the national response to COVID-19 should be mandated as routine. (6/17/20)
Both federal and state health agencies are refusing to share data with Native American tribes on how COVID-19 is spreading through their land and potentially widening health disparities. (6/11/20)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes a piece on the disproportionate number of COVID-19 deaths among racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States.
Responding to mounting pressure for data on the pandemic’s impact on communities of color, the New York Times writes that the Trump administration is asking states to include race and ethnicity with test results. (6/4/20)
The Guardian reports that Public Health England was unable to make any recommendations in its report on minority ethnic groups and the effects of COVID-19 because of the dearth of disaggregated data. (6/4/20)
NPR explains that data on COVID-19 among minority groups are still incomplete. By the end of May, 48 states and Washington DC reported at least some data on race and ethnicity. Even with incomplete data, it remains clear that communities of color are disproportionally affected by COVID-19. (5/30/20)
The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development data uses six cases to explain how inclusive data can protect the most vulnerable communities with large numbers of COVID-19 cases. (5/21/20)
A new analysis from a team of academic researchers quantifies the risk of COVID-19 among racial, ethnic minorities in the United States. (5/11/20)
Preliminary data from an LGBTQ advocacy group show that COVID-19 is largely affecting LGBTQ Americans, especially those of color. (5/10/20)
As COVID-19 cases continue to emerge, the Lancet explains that the virus is disproportionately affecting people from black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) communities in England. (5/8/20)

What gender-disaggregated data are available, what are missing, and what do they reveal about the gender inequities of the COVID-19 pandemic?

(sources)

A study from the Center of Gender Equity and Health at UCSD finds that nations led by women are more likely to see lower COVID-19 fatality rates than nations led by men. *New*
World Bank Data demonstrates how data can correct and shape accurate narratives to inform policy and programmatic investments to battle the uptick in gender based violence during COVID-19. (1/18/22) *New*
A UN Women study finds that during the pandemic violence against women impacted at least 1 in 3 women and girls worldwide. (11/24/21) *New*
The Global Gender Tracker data from UN Women, UNDP, and Girl at Pitt finds that women lead only 18% of 414 COVID-19 task forces. They highlight responses taken by governments worldwide to tackle the pandemic and integrate a gender lens. *New*
An Open Data Watch report with Data2X compiles an extensive library of potential solutions to build robust gender data systems during COVID-19 stay-at-home measures. (10/1/21) *New*
Despite COVID-19 recovery efforts, women’s unemployment continues to grow. The ILO World Employment and Social Outlook report found that job losses in 2020 were significant, and recovery so far has been unequal, with women faring worse.
The UN Women Gender Snapshot 2021 presents the latest evidence on gender equality across all 17 SDGs, highlighting the progress made since 2015 and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CEPEI’s COVID-19 Data and Innovation Centre finds that COVID-19 related job losses pushed 81 million people out of the labor force, with the most affected being women in the Global South.
Ladysmith researches the rise of GBV during the pandemic and uses a WhatsApp-based digital platform to inform more effective and gender-responsive. (3/16/2021)
The COVID-19 lock-down measures have intensified intrahousehold relationships. With the help of other actors, Facebook has set out to capture a global snapshot of household gender dynamics during the pandemic.
Explore Global Health 50/50’s new piece ‘Recorded but not Revealed’ to learn more about the relationship between COVID-19, gender, and income level and their work to uncover disparities.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, International Labour Organization, UN Women, and the World Bank joined together to release a report on the emerging evidence that shows tremendous gender disparities in the pandemic’s health and socioeconomic consequences. (3/6/21)
The Women, Business, and the Law index 2021 analyzes economic rights during different milestones in a woman’s working life through eight indicators, providing an important tool for understanding the gendered economic effects of COVID-19. (3/2/21)
NPR reports that the exclusion of pregnant women in Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine trials has left many people questioning if the vaccine is safe for pregnant women and their children. (1/27/21)
World Bank Blogs measures and predicts gender-based violence in Indonesia amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (12/16/20)
New data from the World Health Organization Regional Office in Europe shows links between gender and non-communicable diseases. (12/9/20)
A group of scientists and health experts’ author a piece for France24 raising concerns that data on gender differences and the virus are not being gathered which could impact vaccination rollouts. (12/4/20)
Mayra Buvnic, Lorenz Noe, and Eric Swanson author a piece on the gendered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. They produced a gender vulnerability dashboard that maps indicators of women’s wellbeing, economic outlook, COVID-19 rates and trends, and countries’ capacity to respond to the pandemic with a gender lens. (11/30/20)
While COVID-19 has taken a toll on all Afghans, women have been disproportionately impacted. UN Women and Rescue.org release a study on gender gaps in employment, health care, and other sectors that have been exacerbated by the pandemic in Afghanistan. (11/8/20)
UN Women conducted a rapid gender assessment of COVID-19 implications in Turkey to reveal the economic and social impact of COVID-19 on women and men. (11/2/20)
Gender data are essential to fully understand COVID-19 transmission and its impacts on women and girls. This year’s Gender Snapshot by UN Women looks at progress made for gender equality and the pandemic’s impact across the Sustainable Development Goals.
Low percentages of women contracting and dying of COVID-19 in Afghanistan have caused concerns that women are being shut out of the health care system and the public sphere. This discrepancy can be caused by the lack of healthcare professionals’ capacity and data collection systems in a war-torn country. (10/3/20)
CARE conducts a rapid gender analysis to measure the catastrophic impacts of COVID-19 and fill the gender data gap. (9/22/2020)
The COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker, launched by UN Women and UNDP, monitors governments worldwide’ policy measures to tackle the COVID-19 crisis and highlights responses that have integrated a gender lens.
Analysis of COVID-19 data gaps by Global Health 50/50, using data from their COVID-19 Sex-Disaggregated Data Tracker, finds that on a global level, sex-disaggregated data is often inconsistent, incomplete, or hard to access. (9/11/20)
STAT News discusses the missing data needed to make the COVID-19 vaccines safe for children and pregnant women. Vaccine manufacturers cannot hold clinical trials with pregnant women or women who are breastfeeding, making it challenging to understand whether it will be safe to get the vaccine once it is available. (8/19/20)
The Harvard GenderSci Lab discovered a collection of social factors that may explain the sex differentials in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates. (8/18/20)
A Q&A with Dr. Sabine Oertelt-Prigione discusses how COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of collecting data on sex differences in medicine. She explains that, down to the cellular level, the male and female immune systems are different; therefore, sex-disaggregated data are pivotal for understanding how COVID-19 is affecting men and women differently. (8/6/20)
Women have spent more time than men performing unpaid care work during the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of the pandemic call for more time-use surveys, which track how people divide their time between paid and unpaid work. (8/5/20) *New*
Science magazine discusses how pregnant women’s uniquely adjusted immune systems make them more vulnerable to COVID-19 and advocates that more funding needs to be allocated for data collection so that health officials can determine how COVID-19 affects pregnant women. (8/4/20)
The authors of Data Feminism, Katherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein, put together seven principles for challenging and changing power imbalances in data science during COVID-19. (7/30/20)
Melinda Gates authors a piece on how sexist and incomplete data are holding back the COVID-19 response. (7/30/20)
UN Women publishes Unlocking the lockdown: The gendered effects of COVID-19 on achieving the SDGs in Asia and the Pacific that explains the impact of pandemic on different genders in terms of the 17 SDG goals. (7/21/20)
The Lancet sets out to explore the gendered effect of school closures during the pandemic, as recent estimates show about 90 percent of students are out of school due to COVID-19. (7/11/20)
The New York Times authors a piece on why we still don’t know enough about the effects of COVID-19 on pregnant women even after more than six months into this pandemic. (7/10/20)
UNFPA published a decision tree to help organizations with gender-based violence programs, national statistical offices, and policymakers decide when and how to best collect data on women’s experiences of violence during COVID-19. (6/30/20)
The New York Times explores the gender gap in COVID-19 deaths by looking at social factors first instead of biology. (6/24/20)
Although accurate gender data are crucial for a gender-sensitive COVID-19 response, Devex and Data2X find that sex-disaggregated data on confirmed COVID-19 infections and deaths are incomplete. (6/23/20)
STAT News explains the importance of designing personal protective gear for women, especially since women accounted for 73% of the more than 9,000 U.S. health care workers infected by COVID-19 by early April. (6/19/20)
An analysis in BMJ Global Health shows that only one in three COVID-19 research authors are women. (6/11/20)
Learn more about how COVID-19 is affecting men and women differently through an analysis of the data collected by Global Health 50/50.
CARE Palestine carried out a Rapid Gender Assessment to highlight the importance of addressing the gender impacts of the pandemic and norms that discriminate against women. (5/24/20)
The World Health Organization released a Gender and COVID-19 advocacy brief. The brief highlights the dearth COVID-19 sex- and age-disaggregated data, which is hindering the development of appropriate policy responses. (5/15/20)
Article from UN Women explains that women in slums are worse off than their male slum counterparts in access to employment, health facilities, and education. (5/14/20)
Evidence from the Maldives suggests that COVID-19 may be shifting social norms and prompting men to help out more at home. (5/8/20)
New data show a decrease in women being able to report incidents of domestic violence in fragile and conflict-affected countries during COVID-19. (5/7/20)
UN Women discusses the importance of qualitative data for the COVID-19 response to leave no one behind. These kinds of data can help policymakers understand the gendered impacts of the virus and the difficulties women face with shelter-in-place orders. (5/7/20)
Devex discusses the ways that the COVID-19 pandemic has made it more difficult and dangerous to gather data on violence against women. (5/6/20)
Brookings reports on the data from Germany that show different impacts of COVID-19 by gender and age. The data show that the mortality rate is systematically higher for men compared to women in all age groups. (5/1/20)
UN Women’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) started conducting rapid assessments on the gendered consequences of COVID-19 two weeks after it was declared a pandemic. Here are the results. (4/29/20)
New analysis by UN Population Fund (UNFPA) shows that COVID-19 will cause millions more cases of violence, child marriage, female genital mutilation, and unintended pregnancies. (4/28/20)
This report from Lancet describes the creation of a web-based, international registry to record information about pathogens, including COVID-19, affecting pregnant women. It makes the point that data on the effects of emergent pathogens are often unavailable or available only after a considerable delay. (4/27/20)
The United Kingdom National Health Service’s professional body explains that female healthcare workers are put at a higher risk because their protective equipment is designed for men. (4/26/20)
The Lily reports that since the stay-at-home order was put into effect, women academics seem to be submitting fewer papers, and men are submitting up to 50 percent more than they usually would. (4/24/20)
A study from VoxEU finds that working-age women are more susceptible to COVID-19 than working-age men in Italy, possibly due to women’s over-representation in jobs in health and education which exposes them to a higher risk of contagion. (4/23/20)
Survey data from the UK show that the COVID-19 crisis is harming women’s labor market prospects more than men’s. (4/22/20)
Devex highlights the importance of a data-driven approach to fighting COVID-19 that factors in how the outbreak is affecting women and men differently. (4/20/20)
World Bank Blogs reports that beyond collecting COVID-19 sex-disaggregated mortality data, it is also imperative that we measure the social and economic gendered effects of COVID-19. (4/20/20)
UN Women publishes a living document which summarizes the main principles and recommendations for those planning to gather data on the impact of COVID-19 on violence against women and girls. (4/17/20)
Brief from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific on the importance of sex- and age-disaggregated population data for addressing the COVID-19 crisis and available resources and support for national authorities to better access, analyze, and disseminate these data. (4/16/20)
Some countries are now providing sex-disaggregated data, but from Open Data Watch’s review of Global Health 50/50’s data, most are not. Presumably, many more could. A campaign to improve the reporting of gender-disaggregated data is needed. (4/15/20)
UN Women has released dashboards on COVID-19 with sex-disaggregated case data, including sex-disaggregated data on health workers. (4/7/2020)
Blog post from Development Gateway on the gender bias inherent in COVID-19 data, the long-term social impacts the pandemic will have on women, and how we can move forward to a more gender-inclusive data landscape. (4/4/20)
New York Times explains the dangers of not disaggregating data by gender and highlights that the recent data on cases and deaths in the United States from the Center of Disease Control Prevention (CDC) are not disaggregated by gender. (4/3/20)
As the coronavirus begins to hit the developing world, researchers are predicting that women in the informal sector of the economy may be hit the hardest by the recession. (4/2/20)
Global Health 50/50 and CNN are compiling publicly available sex-disaggregated data reported by national governments.
The Centre for Global Public Health at the Queen Mary University of London publishes a policy brief on the importance of an intersectional approach to COVID-19 data collection to ensure that minorities are not left behind. (3/31/20)
Project Syndicate reports that applying a gender lens to COVID-19 requires reliable gender- and age-disaggregated data in all surveillance and monitoring efforts. (3/27/20)
A significant percentage of the world’s population, many of them pregnant women, will be infected over the next weeks or months. This editorial from the online journal of the American Medical Association warns that more evidence is needed on the possibility of transmission of COVID-19 in the womb. (3/26/20)
A BMJ study collected sex-disaggregated data on COVID-19 to analyze health disparities in hard hit areas. (3/24/20)
Data2x calls for more COVID-19 tests as they provide crucial data inputs used to track the spread of transmission and tailor policy responses. (3/23/20)
A recent KFF Coronavirus Poll, conducted between March 11 and 15, 2020 and finds larger shares of women taking greater precautions than men. (3/20/20)
Webinar on collecting disaggregated data and conducting gendered analyses to better understand non-communicable disease. (3/19/20)
Center for Global Development conducts an analysis on how COVID-19 affects women and girls in low- and middle-income countries. (3/16/20)
The Lancet uses sex-disaggregated data to conduct a gender analysis of the mortality and vulnerability rates of the virus. (3/14/20)
Health experts worry that the roles women hold in society,such as nurses or caregivers, may make them more susceptible to contracting COVID-19. (3/12/20)
Forbes explains why collecting and publishing gender-disaggregated outbreak data is vital to medical and public efforts. (3/6/20)

Feedback

What digital initiatives are in place to combat COVID-19 with increased research and data?

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A toll-free hotline in Cambodia, created before COVID-19, has been influential in monitoring and tracking the spread of disease in the country. It has been credited for identifying 90% of early COVID-19 cases in the country. (5/17/21)
To improve public COVID-19 information, Johns Hopkins released the Pandemic Data Initiative to explore how data discrepancies impacted COVID-19 responses and solutions to improve public data. (5/17/21)
A report in Nature describes findings from studies in a handful of countries showing that contract tracing applications and initiatives can help prevent infections and are valuable for the COVID-19 policy response. (2/22/21)
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Health offers a free course taught by Emily Gurley on COVID-19 contact tracing. The online course will begin on December 3rd and is open to everyone. (12/3/20)
Drew Armstrong authors a piece for Bloomberg on the volunteers behind the COVID-19 tracking projects that fill government-collected data gaps. (11/20/20)
The Food and Drug Administration authorized the use of an inexpensive saliva test for COVID-19 called SalivaDirect. This test, developed at the Yale School of Public Health, can be an opportunity for more accessible testing for a greater understanding of COVID-19 testing. (8/15/20)
Nature Medicine publishes a review that aims to understand digital innovations for the global public health response to COVID-19 and its limitations. The study investigates the legal, ethical, and privacy barriers and organizational and workforce barriers. (8/7/20)
Virginia is the first state in the United States to use an app for contact tracing. The app, CODEWISE, has been implemented from The Virginia Department of Health and will alert an individual if he or she came close to a COVID-19 positive individual. (8/5/20)
IBM unveiled a new, open-source toolkit with a set of Jupyter Notebooks designed for developers and data scientists, to help spot trends in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. (6/25/20)
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes a trusted partner during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to recognize the possible embedded bias in AI that could be determining who keeps their job, what news we see, and even who lives or dies. (6/14/20)
Even though machine learning algorithms were already becoming a part of health care, COVID-19 is likely to accelerate the use of these mechanisms to tackle health issues. (5/27/20)
Data-Smart City Solutions reports on the latest ways technologists are building tools to aid the pandemic response. (5/4/20)
Apple and Google released the first version of their exposure notification API, which they previously called the contact tracing API. Developers can use the API to create new contact tracing and notification apps for health agencies. (4/29/20)
Twitter is helping developers and researchers to study the public conversation around COVID-19 with an update to its API platform. (4/29/20)
A German COVID-19 contact tracing app is linking up with labs to provide test result notifications to users to improve citizen’s reaction time to their infections and curb the spread of the virus. (4/23/20)
MIT Technology Review reports on the use of AI to triage COVID-19 patients and how the practice could change medicine for good. (4/23/20)
Crowdsourcing a crisis response for COVID-19 in oncology. (4/21/20)
Together with the University of Maryland, Facebook is developing an API that would allow researchers to tap into their COVID-19 symptom tracker dataset. (4/20/20)
MIT created a machine learning algorithm that combines data on the disease’s spread with a neural network, to help predict when infections will slow down in countries. (4/16/20)
The Guardian reports on how tech giants have struggled to stem the ‘infodemic’ of false coronavirus claims. (4/10/20)
The Verge reports on a new project from Apple and Google to build a coronavirus tracking system into iOS and Android. (4/10/20)
The GovLab has assembled a collection of videos and lectures on how to mobilize groups of people online and implement a crowdsourced public response to COVID-19.
Health Europa reports on a newly developed artificial intelligence tool that will be able to accurately predict if newly infected patients with COVID-19 virus will develop severe symptoms. (4/8/20)
In order to limit misinformation, WhatsApp will now limit the ability to forward messages to other users. (4/7/20)
A piece on the Chinese cell phone applications which played a pivotal role in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in China. (4/5/20)
The mobile phone industry is exploring the creation of a global data-sharing system that could track individuals to curb the spread of Covid-19. (3/25/20)
Ghost Data, a research group in Italy, is scanning more than 500,000 social media posts to see if users are following quarantine guidelines. (3/25/20)
The Washington Post reveals how smartphone data reveals which states are social distancing. (3/24/20)
The WHO is releasing a program to send COVID-19 updates through WhatsApp. (3/20/20)
The Indian government is using handstamps and mobile-phone tracking people suspected of having coronavirus to enforce quarantine. (3/20/20)
The Register authors a piece on India’s initiative to crowdsource COVID-19 response. (3/17/20)
A GovTech article on Singapore’s use of WhatsApp to send rapid updates on the coronavirus. (3/3/20)

What digital initiatives can governments and organizations join to combat COVID-19?

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Francesca Perucci and Calogero Carletto author a piece for the World Bank Blogs to discuss how national statistical offices cope with the pandemic and what support they need. (8/17/20)
To combat one of the biggest roadblocks to fighting COVID-19, the lack of proper data, the United Nations Economic Commission of Africa (UNECA), and the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) formed a partnership to join multi-sectoral organizations and help tackle COVID-19 through technological advancements. (4/23/20)
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has published guidance for the use of location data and tracking tools developed to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. (4/21/20)
The Open Government Partnership wrote a call to action to build mutual trust between government and citizens as a mechanism to reinforce COVID-19 relief efforts. (4/21/20)
The Open Data Institute is providing free support to people and organizations to open data that might help the world fight COVID-19. (4/20/20)
World Economic Forum lists five methods to protect digital connectivity during the COVID-19 pandemic. (4/16/20)
Toolbox for EU member states on using mobile applications to support contact tracing in the EU’s fight against COVID-19. (4/15/20)
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe publishes a platform to guide national statistical offices to resources and provide a space for sharing ideas during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Imperial College London has launched a new survey to track how populations are responding to the coronavirus pandemic. (4/11/20)
The United Nations Statistics Division authors a piece on their work with national statistical offices during the COVID-19 pandemic. (4/9/20)
PARIS21 released a policy brief calling on national statistical offices to assume a central role as coordinators of their national statistical systems and to evaluate and organize alternative data sources such as mobile phone and satellite data. (4/8/20)
Statistical Journal of the International Association for Official Statistics authors a piece on the role of official statistics in the context of COVID-19. (4/8/20)
PARIS21 describes their strategy to support national statistical offices throughout the COVID-19 crisis. (3/27/20)
The Open Government Partnership created a collection of examples on open government approaches to tackling COVID-19, many of which are digital initiatives.
The United Nations Statistics Division is leading a collaborative effort to produce a website to share guidance, best practices, information resources, and tools to help statistical organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The UK Office of National Statistics reports on how they are providing the best possible information during COVID-19 through safe data collection.
The OECD has put out an open call for evidence on the release and use of Open Government Data (OGD) in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

What digital initiatives can people join to combat COVID-19?

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The National Academy of Sciences reports on the Jamming the Curve competition for gamers to develop concepts for games that reflect the real-world dynamics of the pandemic. The organizers of the competition argue that games can help connect our individual actions to larger-scale impact and help translate data into engaging stories. (11/2/20)
COVID-19 Open Research Dataset Challenge, an AI Challenge with the Allen Institute for AI and the White House on Kaggle, asks users to apply natural language processing and AI techniques to analyze over 195,000 scholarly articles and solve tasks.
The MIT Institute for Data Systems and Society has organized the IDSS COVID-19 Collaboration to provide systematic and rigorous analyses of data associated with the COVID-19 pandemic to inform policymakers.
Infotagion is an independent, expert fact-checking service for COVID-19. Sourced from WHO, UK, and other official government advice. Questions can be submitted on their website for fact checking.
The Quantitative Ethnography COVID Data Challenge is a call to action to leverage data from public text on COVID-19 to generate insights that have the potential to make a difference in public policy or understanding the social and cultural dimensions of the COVID-19 crisis.
The Interoperability Proving Ground — an open, community platform to share and learn about interoperability projects — has a section dedicated to COVID-19 interoperability projects.
Harvard Business Review explains how digital contact tracing has slowed the spread of COVID-19 in East Asia. (4/15/20)
GitHub repository of data science tools for COVID-19.
Help with COVID-19 has created a project board for crowdsourcing volunteers for tech and other projects to fight the spread of COVID-19.
UC San Francisco is leading a COVID-19 ‘Citizen Science’ Initiative which any adult can sign up to via their mobile phone to provide insight on how the virus is spreading and reduce the number of new infections. (3/30/20)
IBM offers free tools to track COVID-19 cases for your phone and online. (3/25/20)
The Techforce19 challenge is providing up to 25,000 pounds of funding for any company in England looking to develop digital solutions that can be launched to support remote working. (3/23/20)
Kaggle competition to create a daily COVID-19 forecast. (3/18/20)
The crowdsourced app Opendemic provides status alerts on nearby cases of COVID-19 and critical information about the virus. (3/17/20)
Gamers are using the extra processing power from their computers to help researchers understand the protein structure of COVID-19. (3/16/20)
The World Economic Forum describes seven ways to use collective intelligence to tackle the emergence of a new global pandemic. (3/15/20)
The Mercatus Center launches a series of prizes to fund innovation and research on COVID-19. (3/13/20)
If you would like help making your own coronavirus dashboard, this article discusses the different R packages that you can use to create a dashboard. (3/11/20)
Health officials and scientists in Britain are developing a smartphone app that would alert people who had come in contact with someone infected with the coronavirus. (3/10/20)
Snopes crowdsources fact checking of misinformation on COVID-19 through the analysis of memes, rumors, jokes, and misinformation spreading on social media in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. (3/6/20)
Tips for fact checking in the age of misinformation and the coronavirus. (3/4/20)
The University of Washington COVID-19 puzzle game aims to crowdsource a cure. (3/2/20)
The Federation of American Scientists created a crowdsourced site for people to ask their questions about COVID-19 to scientists. (March)
Ten steps to planning a hackathon in response to a global emergency. (11/15/19)

What data resources are available to understand the SARS-CoV-19 variants and mutations?

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The new Walgreens COVID-19 Index tracks the Omicron variant across the United States. (1/19/22) *New*
Our World In Data explores how previously used COVID-19 metrics compare to the recent omicron surge. (1/18/22) *New*
In collaboration with partners, the World Health Organization is tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants, how easily they spread, and their impact on the performance of vaccines. *New*
An analysis of data from South Africa finds that the omicron variant is less severe, better at but effective in evading vaccines. The study finds that a two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination appeared to provide just 33 percent protection against infection. (12/14/21) *New*
Health IT Analytics discusses Providence’s COVID-19 detection map, which helps describe COVID-19 prevalence at the neighborhood level. (2/1/21)
GISAID is an initiative promoting data interoperability from all the research on influenza viruses and the coronavirus causing COVID-19. They are also an international platform for sharing viral genomic data.
The United States is lagging behind on viral genetic sequencing, which is a critical tool for combatting the pandemic and particularly for understanding COVID-19 variants. (1/19/21)
The World Health Organization calls for guidelines on naming the COVID-19 variants as there is currently no international consensus now on what the variants are named. (1/19/21)
Andrew Joseph authors a piece for STAT News on the COVID-19 variants and how they could make the situation much worse due to their transmission advantages. (1/14/21)
Elizabeth Cohen, the CNN Senior Medical Correspondent, explains that the United States has not been collecting virus samples fast enough to be able to understand the coronavirus variants. Cohen explains that much of the data being used to combat the coronavirus variants is a few months old. (1/10/21)

DATA in the time of COVID-19

Open data, data use, and COVID-19

Updated

27 January 2022

Availability

Openness

Dissemination

Uptake and Use

Feedback

Author: Open Data Watch

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