How did COVID really impact the World?

by Apoorv, Juhi, Sandeep and Sai

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The pandemic caused by COVID-19 is the first global public health crisis of the 21st century. In December 2019, reports emerged that a coronavirus that specialists had never before seen in humans had begun to spread among the population of Wuhan, a large city in the Chinese province of Hubei. Since then, the virus has spread to other countries, inside and outside of Asia, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare this as a pandemic.

Over time the coronavirus has travelled across the world spreading to every continent. Here’s a representation of the coronoavirus cases confirmed daily throughout the world.

(If the graph seems distorted drag the slider and wait for map to render)

To date, the novel coronavirus has been responsible for millions of infections globally, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. The highest number of deaths has occurred in the United States.
Following is a graph that depicts the number of cases and deaths worldwide.
As this virus has spread to over 7 million people worldwide, the governments across the world have implemented several different policies to try control and fight this invisible enemy. Each of the 195 governments in the world have all taken different measurements to counteract the effects of the virus. But, are the measurements taken by the government all equally effective?
Our dataset compares over 170 different countries with respect to 3 different policies totaling 13 different indications, each government has implemented. The indicators of each policy are as follows:
1. Containment and Closure Policies
  • School Closing: Closing of school and universities (Scale: 0- 3)
  • Workplace Closing: Closing of workplaces (Scale: 0 - 3)
  • Public Event Cancellation: Closing of public events (Scale:0 - 2)
  • Private Event Restrictions: Limit persons in public gatherings (Scale: 0 - 4)
  • Public Transportation Closing: Closing Public Transportation (Scale: 0 - 2)
  • Social Distancing Requirements: ‘Shelter in-place’ requirements (Scale: 0 - 3)
  • Inter Country/City Travel Restrictions: (Scale: 0 - 2)
  • International Travel Restrictions: Prevent citizens from travelling abroad (Scale: 0 - 4)
    • 2. Economic Policies
  • Income Support: Government cash payments to residents (Scale: 0 - 2)
  • Debt/Contract Relief: Government freezing financial obligations (Scale: 0 - 2)
    • 3. Health Systems Policies
  • Public Information Campaign: (Scale: 0 - 2)
  • Testing Policies: Government policy on who has access to testing (Scale: 0 - 3)
  • Contact Tracing: Government response to tracing after positive diagnosis (Scale: 0 - 2)
    • With such a large number of indicators, the graphs below allow one to effectively compare and contrast the number of cases and deaths in a country and the focus of the government across each of the indications mentioned above:
    A deeper dive into some specific countries and their focus different indicators provide some interesting insights. The four countries that were chosen are as follows:
  • 1. India
  • 2. Sweden
  • 3. New Zealand
  • 4. United States
    • India’s lockdown of 1.3 billion people, the world’s largest and one of the most stringent one in the world, began when the number of cases were relatively low. As can be seen from the Radar chart, India placed heavy restrictions on most of the indications. Heavy requirements on “Stay At Home” orders and “School Closing” and “Restrictions on Gatherings” have allowed India to initially control the number of new cases being added each day. However, with the recent relaxations on on June 10th, the number of new cases (and deaths) still continues to rise.
    While India decided to impose heavy restrictions, Sweden was on the opposite end of the spectrum. Sweden only imposed heavy restrictions on limiting gatherings. As can be seen from the radar chart, Sweden imposed no restrictions on Stay at Home Requirements. Its residents were allowed more freedom. With relatively few restrictions, Sweden has been able to control and limit the number of daily cases and deaths to a low number, with a max of 2000 new cases.
    New Zealand was one of the countries that was successful in ‘flattening the curve’ and getting to an extremely low number of cases on a daily basis. New Zealand's policies seem only slightly more restrictive than Sweden's policies. From the comparison of the Radar Charts of these two countries, it seems as though they had very similar models. New Zealand's highest number of cases in a day max out at 95 cases. Since then New Zealand has been able to reduce the number of cases by keeping policies stringent and only relaxing them once the government deemed it was safe to do so.
    Lastly, looking at the United States, it seems to have implemented more restrictive measures compared to New Zealand and Sweden, but still has been unsuccessful in controlling the number of cases. On April 26th the US recorded a max of around 49000 new cases. Even though this could be a false peak, the number of new cases seems to hover around, for the month of June, 20000 new cases daily. This is all happening while the government is starting to open the country.
    The visualization (Click Here) shows a dashboard and allows the user to explore how the mobility of people across the country (United States) has changed because of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

    User may experience distorted dashboard because of issues with Tableau-Public displays, we recommend using Tableau Reader

    In Conclusion

    The analysis has allowed the user to walk through and get a sense of the severity of the situation around the world because of the pandemic. As the number of cases and deaths continue to rise each government has done everything in its power to try and stop the spread of the disease.
    With the implementation of some policies some countries have succeeded to almost eradicate COVID from its territory, while others continue to struggle with no end in sight. The analysis of the policies reveals that there is no one model that will always be effective to control the outbreak. However, one effective policy found was the use of Contact Tracing to prevent the spread of the disease. Since the United States has focused less on contact tracing, the number of cases still continues to rise.
    From the dashboard, it can be seen that the number of people present in parks have increased, which could be contributing to the number of new cases being found each day. This mobility continues to rise in certain public regions of Parks & Beaches (as latest as June 10) that positions a rising concern for the coming weeks.
    The viewer is taken through various perspectives with a holistic approach to each component of this analysis. Each factor contributing to the spread of a pandemic should be given thorough consideration. Governments should appropriately enforce optimal measures to address these various factors and we should be cooperative to ensure proper enforcement. This leaves the world better prepared for the future.

    Thank You!