A COVID-19 Analysis with SimplyAnalytics

We find ourselves in the middle of an unprecedented crisis the likes of which most of us have never experienced before, and hopefully won’t have to experience again. There is the occasional moment that makes us smile in the middle of it all (like when people are buying up all the fluffy yellow baby chicks out there – but please, don’t cuddle your feathered friends), but overall the situation is scary and it’s probably safe to say all of us are feeling anxious about the near and distant future alike. The reason we’re so concerned is not just because of the scale of this outbreak and the impact it’s having on individual people, society, and the economy, but also due to uncertainty and confusion. We don’t yet know much about this novel virus, and that’s why everyone is trying to collect and share as much information as possible. To that end, we want to provide some insight into the spread and severity of the Coronavirus using health and demographic data.

Aside from actual virus spread data, we can look at various factors that might indicate elevated risk of developing severe illness if and when the virus spreads in an area, i.e. who will need extra help recovering from COVID-19, the lung disease caused by the Coronavirus. These risk factors are most reliably described by national and international health organizations such as the CDC, the WHO, and the ECDC. And although these sources do emphasize that we don’t yet know for sure what sort of factors actually affect our susceptibility to the virus and severe progressions (for example, we do see young, healthy people becoming very ill), they provide what amounts to their current best estimate.

COVID-19 Data is Now Available in SimplyAnalytics

As COVID-19 spreads across the United States researchers need access to the latest data visualization and analytics tools. As a result, the SimplyAnalytics team just added COVID-19 data at the national, state, and county levels to SimplyAnalytics. The data is from USAFacts.org and we update it daily with the latest numbers.

The following data variables are now available in SimplyAnalytics:

  • Confirmed COVID-19 Cases by date
  •  Prevalence of confirmed COVID-19 cases (per 100,000 individuals) by date
  • Deaths from COVID-19 by date
  • Prevalence of deaths from COVID-19 (per 100,000 individuals) by date

You can find the COVID-19 data in SimplyAnalytics in two places:

  • [recommended] Go to the Data tab, click on the “Data Folder” view (located just below the data search box), then scroll to the bottom of the list of data folders, or
  • Go to the Data tab, click on the Health category icon, then check the box next to COVID-19 in the list of health sub-categories

This data can be combined with our demographic and health data variables to identify areas with vulnerable residents, such as the elderly, people with respiratory illnesses, and smokers.

Here are the best ways to view this data in SimplyAnalytics:

  • Map View: map the COVID-19 data by County or State
  • Ranking View: rank all counties in the United States to identify areas with the highest counts or rates of COVID-19
  • Comparison Table View: add your counties and states and any COVID-19 variables to this report to compare rates over time
  • Related Data Table View: add one variable from a folder to this view and all of the rest will be added automatically

Here are two examples showing the data being used in SimplyAnalytics, a map and a ranking (click to enlarge):