Ignore the distractions. Focus on COVID-19, which is killing a thousand Americans every day.
Some politicians would talk about anything other than the Americans that die every day from COVID-19. Distractions abound. Medical experts are muzzled. Access to Coronavirus data is restricted and distorted.
Fortunately, John Hopkins University provides a reliable data stream which the free Death Counter app uses as a realtime dashboard to the tragedy.
Johns Hopkins University - Coronavirus Resource Center
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center (CRC) is a continuously updated source of COVID-19 data and expert guidance. It aggregates and analyzes the best data available on COVID-19—including cases, as well as testing, contact tracing and vaccine efforts—to help the public, policymakers and medical experts respond to the pandemic. It provides a detailed, worldwide map of Coronavirus cases and its spread.
DemLabs used the publicly available data from John Hopkins University to create a real time dashboard on COVID-19 cases and deaths in America, using ArcGIS Online Dashboard. The COVID-19 Death Counter app shows both COVID-19 cases and deaths by county. The app is provided as a free public service and is refreshed daily with new information from John Hopkins University.
Hiding data does not reduce the death count.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, is among the critics of the change. She said the order to “bypass CDC and send coronavirus patient information to a central database in Washington are in direct violation of the law.” “HHS has been operating as a dangerous, political apparatus and cannot be trusted to share accurate hospital information with Congress and the American public,” DeLauro said. “More than 135,000 people in the United States have died due to the coronavirus. How many more people must suffer, and how many more families must lose loved ones before this administration stops playing political games?
DeLauro also said President Donald Trump “fumbled our coronavirus response.” “He can try to intentionally hide the exploding number of cases, but the people will not be fooled,” she said.
Real time data helps respond faster
Dashboards make it easy to absorb a great deal of fast changing information quickly. ArcGIS Dashboards conveys information as location-based analytics with an intuitive interface. Dashboards help make decisions, visualize trends, monitor status in real time, and slice the data to provide the answers they need. Another example of using technology to expose how COVID-19 is spreading across America is in this StoryMap by Jim Herries.
