It can be difficult to wrap your head around everything happening in a pandemic, but interactive maps and graphs can do a great job of illustrating and explaining the situation. Here are some of our favourite data visualisation stories.
Why outbreaks like coronavirus spread exponentially, and how to “flatten the curve” – The Washington Post
This article by the Washington Post does an amazing job of explaining how social distancing can flatten the curve. They explain their simulation in steps, making it easy to understand and make sense of the concept. The visualisations themselves appear simple, and that’s what makes it so effective in explaining a large-scale issue. It’s also pretty fun – watching the simulations is fascinating and you’ll reach the end of the article wanting more.
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The Korean clusters: How coronavirus cases exploded in South Korean churches and hospitals – Reuters
Reuters explores the spread of coronavirus in South Korea through a selection of data visualisations and illustrated timelines. The article shows how the virus spread between individuals with an illustration of the confirmed cases and ‘Patient 31’ who was responsible for the exponential rise in the number of cases.
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Mapping the novel coronavirus outbreak – Esri
Esri has created an interactive story that follows the coronavirus pandemic from the beginning to where we are now. Their interactive maps compile all the necessary information on one page and help you track the journey of the virus on a geographic level.
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Coronavirus: A visual guide to the pandemic – BBC
The BBC’s visual and data team have brought us a listed guide accompanied by data visualisations. The article is updated daily, and you can see how the number of confirmed cases has changed in the top 10 countries in the past couple of months.
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How coronavirus is devastating the restaurant business – Vox
We’ve all heard about the impact the outbreak is having on a number of industries, and Vox has looked at the effect on restaurants. Using data from OpenTable, they have created graphs to illustrate the change in diner numbers in February and March of 2019 and 2020. You can see which cities have been hit hardest on their interactive graph.
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