MapLab: An Actionable Map of Covid Risk

Wherever Covid-19 continues to spread, the prudence of social gatherings weighs on quarantine-weary people. With more than 20 million global recorded cases, the chance of an RSVP turning into a super-spreader event clearly isn’t zero. But what about a small group? What about in your community?

Built by virus modelers and GIS experts at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a mapping tool offers some answers to would-be socializers in the U.S. For all counties nationwide, the model calculates the chances that at least one person at a potential covening is carrying the coronavirus, depending on the number of people and the area where it’s located. Using data from the Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project, the model assumes that there are ten times the number of cases being reported by health departments, an “ascertainment bias” that users can adjust to 5  — a nod to the level of uncertainty in the country’s Covid case data. Users can select the size of their group and see the rough odds of running across infection.

The odds of one person in a group of 100 being infected with Covid-19 are at or near 99% throughout the southeast U.S.Interactive COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool

“We’re not saying people will be infected at an event, but we are informing people of their risk of exposure,” said Joshua Weitz, a professor of biological sciences who led the project with his Georgia Tech colleague Clio Andris, a professor of city planning and interactive computing.

Amid the sea of data visualizations that have emerged to explain the pandemic, this one stands out for presenting health risk in a relatable and even practical way for individuals. Translating case number curves and broad behavioral portraits into an accurate level of personal risk isn’t easy, especially since it requires understanding how seroprevalence and inadequate testing lead to substantial undercounts (which is why the model includes that ascertainment bias). This Georgia Tech tool is an answer to people weighing real-life scenarios — be they backyard dinner parties, sidewalk beer gardens, parking lot church sermons or all-out Smash Mouth concerts — in a way that’s neither a dichotomous do-or-don’t nor a shame-heavy portrait of bad behavior (see: maps of mask-wearing and social distancing).

In the Intermountain West, the odds of one person in a group of 100 being infected with Covid-19 are not as universally high as in other parts of the U.S. Interactive COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool

With two million pageviews since the tool was released in early July, “It’s clear that people are starved for information that relates to their real-world experiences, and we hope that can drive behavior change,” said Weitz. He and Andris hope to update the model soon with case volumes going back in time, so that users can see how risk is shifting. Campus mappers
With many U.S. school districts and universities still in limbo as to whether they’ll reopen for in-person classes this fall, here’s an idea from faculty at Eckerd College in Florida: Map the best spots for teaching outdoors. 

“Most people seemed to be able to think of only two or three places that they could do it,” said Elizabeth Forys, a professor of environmental science and biology at Eckerd, where students and faculty can choose between coming back to campus or continuing class online, as the entire school did in spring. Working with environmental studies professor Noelle Boucquey, Forys used professional GIS software to survey the campus for key outdoor classroom criteria, such as shade, substrate, Wi-Fi quality and wheelchair accessibility. They came up with a map of 30 spots and set up a reservation system that professors can access on Google Docs. 
A map of outdoor classroom options around Eckherd’s campus. 
Compared to other schools considering outdoor instruction as an answer to virus and ventilation fears, Eckerd is advantaged in that it has a small student body and an enviable location on the perennially warm Gulf Coast. But Forys thinks that even schools in chillier parts of the country can figure out a similar plan. 

“I think you can bundle up and realize that being able to interact and teach in person is worth it,” she said. Still, she acknowledged that not every campus is made equal: “January in Milwaukee is going to be really hard.”

Map links
+ Mapping the damage from last week's explosion in Beirut, from space and on the ground. (JPL) (New York Times) 

+ China may be edging out the U.S. in its development of mapping tools. (Indian Times)

+ In an rural town, hiking enthusiasts use maps to bring newbies onto trails. (Highlands Current)

+ In Wisconsin, "fair mapping" activists lead the fight against partisan gerrymandering. (Lake Mills Leader)

+ Not new, but recommended: How to read poems as maps. (Places Journal)

Source: bloomberg.com
Collected by My Nguyen