By: Eric Gundersen
The New York Times is mapping the locations of coronavirus cases down to the county. Knowing cities and states use a variety of lockdown strategies differently, tracking the rate of viral spread at this level is critical — every region needs granular data to help local officials balance ongoing medical surges with social distancing fatigue and consider phased approaches to reopen economies.
Visualizing the total cases and deaths per area shows the hot spots across the country. The NYT also normalizes the data by showing the per capita rate, the total reported cases per 100,000 people, making hotspots and disparities between locations easier to identify.
The outbreak in the U.S., which now has the highest number of known cases in the world, announced more than 3,000 confirmed deaths yesterday — the country’s deadliest day in the pandemic.
The higher number of deaths comes as hospitals across the country seek scarce protective gear and political leaders weigh how to reopen parts of the economy.
This data is directly sourced by the NYT — the product of dozens of journalists working across several time zones to monitor news conferences, analyze data releases, and seek clarification from public officials on how they categorize cases — and all of the data is available on GitHub.
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Maps feature data from Mapbox and OpenStreetMap and their data partners.
The New York Times: Mapping COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States was originally published in maps for developers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.