Why track COVID-19?
Trusted and officially reported Government data is essential in a time of Pandemic and can be life-saving. Tracking, reporting and communicating data is not something most States, Territories and Counties are set up to do well. Making data more transparent, timely, and easily accessible is the role of CoronavirusAPI, a trusted aggregator who can also provide actionable insights to everyone from healthcare professionals to individuals to enterprise to government.
How can what we know help us?
Covid-19 transmits easily from person to person, 24/7 across borders, and no one has natural immunity. The disease can variably survive on different surfaces (fomites). Some may be asymptomatic carriers while many others may suffer and/or die from this disease. Long term effects are unknown. Immunity after infection and recovery are unknown. Treatment using various combinations of medicine are underway but there is no standard curative protocol. There is no vaccine and one is not anticipated to be available to the general public for a least a year. The number of serious cases is currently on track to overwhelm our healthcare system.
Other nations have found that aggressive testing, tracking, social distance practices and even quarantine have proven effective measures to contain the disease. The world is in the process of developing treatments, preventatives, and diverting healthcare resources to scale and create resiliency in their healthcare systems. Many of these nations have transparently reported their statistics and experience. We can learn from them and act similarly.
States, Territories and Counties public health laws require certain disease statistics to be reported from health providers, hospitals and laboratories, but it is voluntary, though useful, to report these statistics to the CDC.
What is the purpose of CoronavirusAPI?
CoronavirusAPI was created to help States, Territories and Counties protect their populations and have access to and manage transparent, timely, officially reported data about COVID-19, as well as help organizations and individuals quickly access and analyze the data they need . These entities need to prepare, allocate and deploy resources, manage supply chains, and enhance public awareness of the disease. These entities also need to be able to access the spread, mortality rates and create and enforce policies to save lives. The data and insights from this site can be used to help inform their policies such as self-isolation, quarantines, business continuity, travel and social distancing. It can help facilitate regional cooperation, actions, and even aid in the imposition of shelter-in-place rules.
Why is CoronavirusAPI a useful resource for government officials, health professionals, business and individuals?
We can provide a simple uniform interface the States, Territories, and Counties as well as any organization that needs to analyze and act on this data can use to achieve rapid, timely, accurate, transparent, and standard reporting to conduct analytics and gain insights.
The initiative offers aggregated and transparent access to official records State by State all located in one place, in a common form, with data analytics and is updated in an (partially – some states are still changing formats as they scale to the crisis) automated process hourly.
The source of data is the Official Public Health Pages of each State and the USA Territories. Work is currently underway to add data from the up to 3,124 different Counties websites.
What data points do we most need from states, territories, and counties?
- How many people by age group, high risk and in aggregate have been tested for COVID-19 and what are the new cases per day?
- How many people by age group, high risk and in aggregate have COVID-19 or are pending results?
- How many who tested positive have recovered?
- What are the testing and reinfection statistics, immunity after infection statistics, and long-term effects?
- How many people by age group, high risk and in aggregate tested negative for COVID-19?
- Where are the Coronavirus clusters, regional or widespread cases that can show me how at risk I am?
- How fast is the virus spreading?
- How high is the mortality rate for COVID-19 by age group, high risk and in aggregate?