COVID-19 in the Past Present and Future

Interactive map that shows the number of COVID-19 cases

Inspiration

The global pandemic has changed the way we live and the structure of our society. It is essential for us to be informed of how and where the virus is spread, and to understand how small actions like wearing a mask can contribute to stopping the virus in its tracks.

What it does

This dashboard allows for tracking COVID-19 cases, deaths, hospitalizations, recovery, and test frequency for each state in the U.S.

How we built it

Using Python, we collected COVID-19 Data for all states from The Atlantic's COVID Tracking Project (covidtracking.com), and combined that with other datasets to add features for further exploration. We created functions that forecast each metric for an individual state, which can be called when a user selects that state from the Dashboard.

An interactive Dashboard was created using Dash and Plotly.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge we faced was the slow and difficult process of styling the dashboard using Dash and Plotly. We were used to using React and Sass, so becoming familiar with these new tools was a challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Implementing interactivity on the visualizations was a challenge, and we are proud of the work we have done to make these visualizations interesting and user-friendly. We also included forecasts into the visualizations, so users can see more than the historical data and get an idea of what the future might look like.

What we learned

Communication virtually using Notion, Discord, and Github. It was also our first time using Plotly.

What's next for COVID-19 in the Past Present and Future

Next steps for this project would be to style visualizations to make them more appealing, and to improve our forecasts to take other parameters into consideration, such as vaccinations, holidays, and stringency of lockdown policies.