Fighting Covid-19 with Data Analytics

Here are the ways people are using analytics to improve responses to the coronavirus outbreak.

MEDICAL RESOURCE OPTIMIZATION

By using analytical methods to more efficiently allocate available bed space and hospital resources, even to neighboring health systems, health officials hope to reduce mortality rates in areas hardest hit by the virus. These analytical methods include:

• Applying and refining epidemiological models to project COVID-19 infections within a region.
• Predicting the potential numbers of infected people that will require medical intervention and what the level of care might look like.
• Forecasting the number of required caregivers based on scenario modeling.

The insights generated by analytics could lead health care systems to take several actions or a combination of them: 

• Repurposing beds for a higher level of care.
• Using day surgery/outpatient centers as a new bed space.
• Exploring the possibility of reopening shuttered facilities.
• Reallocating clinicians, vital equipment and supplies to where they’re needed most.

SHARING DATA

Facebook is already working with researchers at Harvard University’s School of Public Health and the National Tsing Hua University, in Taiwan, sharing anonymized data about people’s forms of kineticism and high-resolution population density maps, which avail them forecast the spread of the virus. The social network is additionally availing partners to understand how people are talking about the issue online, via implements such as Crowdtangle, which aggregate social-media posts.

CONTACT TRACKING

Contact lists can grow quickly, depending on the rate of infection and environmental factors that may encourage its spread. With social network analytics, contact tracing becomes much easier. With available data, "epidemic detectives" can begin building networks of contacts. The more data, the better the chances of identifying points of vulnerability. Then, using data visualization techniques, health officials can begin identifying common contact points and building a robust, reliable picture of an infected person’s social interactions.

“We are creating an entire methodology to evaluate people’s movements over time and correlate them to the spread of the virus. By knowing key locations based on their role in the network (that is, how central to speed the spread of the virus, how well-positioned to control the spreading flow, or how well-connected to other locations, etc.) we can help government agencies in defining social distancing measures more accurately, according to SAS Principal Data Scientist Carlos Pinheiro.”

USING DATA VISUALIZATION TO TRACK THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

SAS has created a report that depicts the status, location, spread, and trend analysis of the coronavirus. With novel- coronavirus permeating the world, governments and the general public are using SAS Visual Analytics to track the outbreak. The better we can track the virus, the better we can fight with this pandemic. Read more: https://sankhyana.com/blog/Fighting-the-Coronavirus-Pandemic-with-SAS-Visual-Analytics-Tracking-Report

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS AND CRITICAL RESPONSE ANALYSIS

In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, SAS began to use the fast-flowing current of data initially from China, then from around the globe, to visualize the spread and effects of COVID-19 on the world's population. The result is our evolving coronavirus dashboard. The dashboard's utility lies in its ability to quickly access and organizes data in easy-to-understand data visualizations to improve situational awareness. Organizations in many different industries are using it to explore the relationship between outbreak hot spots and their business, including critical supply chains, distributed workforces, and emergency response preparedness.