Covid-19 and data visualisations

The Covid-19 coronavirus and its impact on society are very much in the news and in the forefront of many people’s minds right now.

Amongst the coverage there has been debate on whether countries should be using quarantines, lockdowns or ‘social distancing’ as part of their approach to slowing the spread of the virus.

I came across this Washington Post article which uses animated visualisation to explore transmission and recovery rates under different approaches. The article admits that the visualisations have simplified a complex social and health issue, but still give an approximation of how the different approaches affect populations over time.

Snapshot of one of the simulations (c) Washington Post

Snapshot of one of the simulations (c) Washington Post

The simulations are also random, so will vary for each visitor to the web page, echoing the way that transmission and recovery will not only vary by approach taken but by various factors.

We’d be very interested to hear of any visualisations or innovative use of data to represent and help people better understand the current situation. Let us know in the comments below if you find any!

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