The internet is awash in data from state and local governments about coronavirus cases, much of which lacks context or analysis.
A new interactive map and data analysis released by Harvard University seeks to help the public and policymakers understand what threat or risk their communities face from the coronavirus.
According to the dashboard, Los Angeles County has 20.5 daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 on a rolling seven-day average. That places the county at “Covid Risk Level: Orange” on a green, yellow, orange and red scale, with red counties being at the greatest risk of the coronavirus.
“The public needs clear and consistent information about Covid risk levels in different jurisdictions for personal decision-making, and policy-makers need clear and consistent visibility that permits differentiating policy across jurisdictions," Danielle Allen, director of Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, said on the webpage displaying the dashboard. “We also collectively need to keep focused on what should be our main target: a path to near-zero case incidence.”
(You can click here to see the interactive map.)
The Rockefeller Foundation, CovidActNow, Covid-Local, CIDRAP also supported the development of the dashboard and analysis.
This is how the Harvard analysis defines the color-coded risk scale based on daily new cases per 100,000 people:
- Red: 25 or more
- Orange: 10 to 24
- Yellow: 1 to 9
- Green: Less than 1
“The metrics are now clear: We can reopen and keep open our workplaces and our communities,” said Jonathan Quick, managing director for Pandemic Response, Preparedness, and Prevention at The Rockefeller Foundation. “But achieving this will require a dramatic expansion of testing and tracing to again flatten the curve and eventually suppress the pandemic to near zero new cases.”
Harvard also released a new policy brief on implementing what it called TTSI programs, which include testing, contract tracing and supported isolation to suppress and eventually mitigate the coronavirus. The policy brief holds up this effort as able to minimize the need for stay-at-home orders. It also stratifies possible approaches based on the risk assessment of a county or state.
At a federal level, the brief estimates that a national TTSI program would cost about $75 billion.
“Each month of collective national quarantine cost $150 billion-$300 billion, in addition to compounding social costs of unemployment and social unrest,” the brief states. “Our phased reopening in conditions where case incidence remains high ensures a long and slow recovery, not a V-shaped recovery. Achieving suppression would accelerate recovery. This investment would quickly pay for itself.”