How GIS Helps the COVID-19 Response
Location intelligence changes the dynamic of the fight against COVID-19 as GIS provides valuable insights to manage the crisis. New GIS tools like proximity tracing can identify possible contact events for formulating relevant policies with the help of “The Science of Where”. Esri has made more location intelligence resources available, including Esri Disaster Response Program and the COVID-19 GIS Hub to fight the disease. More GIS solutions such as the Coronavirus Response solution and Business Continuity and Recovery enhance business resilience since organizations can leverage location intelligence to understand the impact of the crisis and make data-driven decisions.
Esri consolidates a number of resources to fight COVID-19.
Five Steps to Combat COVID-19
The spread and effects of COVID-19 can be best understood by considering its space and time on an interactive map dashboard (see last issue of gisConnection). By using GIS, we develop the following five steps to combat the epidemic.
| Step 1 Map the cases | Map confirmed and active cases, fatalities, and recoveries cases to identify where COVID-19 infections exist and have occurred. |
| Step 2 Map the spread | Time-enabled maps can reveal how infections spread over time and where you may want to target interventions. |
| Step 3 Map vulnerable populations | COVID-19 may disproportionally impact certain demographics such as the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. Mapping social vulnerability, age, and other factors helps you monitor the most at-risk groups and regions. |
| Step 4 Map your capacity | Map facilities such as Accident and Emergency services in hospitals, employees or citizens, medical resources, protective equipment and goods to understand and respond to current and potential impacts of COVID-19. |
| Step 5 Communication with maps | Use interactive web maps, dashboard apps, and story maps to help rapidly communicate your situation. |
Five steps are developed with GIS to fight COVID-19.
Apart from visualizing existing data, governments and organizations aim to connect data from a location perspective so that the data sources can be fully unlocked to release their hidden values. Data on COVID-19 cases are extremely important in the epidemic for analysis. For example, Jack Dangermond, Esri Founder and President explained in a video message that the integration of GIS with predictive models like Chime developed by the University of Pennsylvania could forecast the curve of the epidemic.
You may also get the latest COVID-19 GIS news by subscribing to the newsletter at https://coronavirus-resources.esri.com/pages/newsletter.