Page 12 - GIS for Science: GIS Response to COVID-19

THE RISE OF DASHBOARDS AND HUBS
In response to the pandemic, public health agencies and governments at all jurisdictional levels worldwide encountered intense demands for good data. As GIS professionals from across these myriad organizations scrambled to deploy useful and timely data-reporting tools, Esri globally began to put up resources and guidance about how best to use its technology, ArcGIS, an umbrella name that includes the full suite of Esri geospatial softare tools. These off-the-shelf tools uniquely enabled users to geographically organize, tabulate, visualize, and share COVID-19 data with the public.
First, Esri released the Coronavirus Response Solution, a package of two dashboard configurations — the Community Impact Dashboard and the Coronavirus Case Dashboard. This synchronization of data enabled people to easily deploy localized
dashboards for their countries, states, and local provinces. The Community Impact Dashboard is designed to help public health agencies share basic COVID-19 testing and case metrics along with other key community information such as school closings and meal distribution sites. The Coronavirus Case Dashboard is designed to allow public health agencies to share more-detailed COVID-19 testing and case metrics with the public. Additionally, the Coronavirus Response solution includes mobile versions of both dashboards.
At about the same time, Esri put up its COVID-19 GIS Hub as a central repository of maps, datasets, applications, templates, and other GIS resources for creating and offering coronavirus-related resources (https://coronavirus-resources.esri.com).
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The COVID-19 GIS Hub remains an essential site for accessing current information and new applications for delivering virus data and is one of
the largest GIS communities globally. Surrounding graphics illustrate the wide extent to which the GIS community deployed local dashboards around
the planet.