To explore more data on COVID-19, please go to covid19.topos.com.

Epidemiologists have analyzed genetic samples of COVID-19 to understand the virus’ pathway across the U.S. from the first case in Washington state in January to today where more than 1.8 million cases have been reported. The research has suggested that over 60 percent of the cases in the U.S. can be traced to New York City based on genetic mutations of 23,000 virus samples from across the country.

Using Social Distancing Metrics provided by Safegraph, we looked at the relationship between visits originating from the five boroughs / counties of…

One of the many barriers to understanding the impact of COVID-19 in the United States is that most data is being reported by states at the county or city level. There are plenty of good reasons for this –availability, privacy, etc.– but when explaining the geographic distribution of the outbreak, visually some approaches can be misleading or encourage conclusions that aren’t truly backed by the information at hand.

Using absolute counts there are two primary methods in use for displaying cases and deaths on a map. The first is the choropleth map, where county geographies are shaded evenly to represent…

Projections from mathematical models of infectious disease are guiding policy decisions around the world in the fight against COVID-19. While most of these models are specific to the institutions that develop them, they share basic mathematical principles: they divide a population into different groups and try to simulate how the population transitions from one group to the next. In particular, the SIRD model — one of the most frequently used — divides the population into four groups: those who are susceptible to the virus (S), have become infected (I), recovered (R) and died (D). In this article we explore a…

April 29, 2020 by Sam Burns, Ellery Royston

To explore more data on COVID-19, please go to covid19.topos.com.

Residents of the Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation are currently seeing a rapid rise in cases of COVID-19. These reservations overlap with counties in Northeast Arizona, Southeast Utah, and Northwest New Mexico which have some of the highest per capita infection rates in the country.

One of the early stories to emerge concerning COVID-19 was the vulnerability of certain communities in the U.S. caused by a lack of access to critical medical care typically provided in hospitals. Today, Navajo County, Arizona, home to three Native American reservations, the Navajo Nation, Hopi Indian Reservation, and Fort Apache Indian Reservation, is experiencing one of the country’s highest per capita cases of COVID-19 (435 cases per 100K people). What makes the county’s high rate especially alarming is the lack of points of medical care able to treat serious COVID-19 patients. To understand vulnerability through the lens of access…

South Dakota is currently experiencing one of the highest rates of new COVID-19 cases in the United States. From Monday, April 6 to Sunday, April 12, the state saw the number of confirmed cases rise from 288 to 730, a 154 percent increase over the week.

The epicenter of COVID-19 cases is Minnehaha County, where a plant owned by Smithfield Foods, the largest pork processor in the world, is located. …

Dense urban counties with large populations have the most concentrated numbers of cases and deaths caused by COVID-19. This can be attributed to many factors beyond their respective population density, particularly the fact that New York City and Boston (cities containing counties with some of the highest concentration of cases) are global travel hubs. While population density, to a large degree explains the high level of mortality⁽¹⁾ these cities have experienced, there are other factors that also have a statistically significant relationship to mortality and infection⁽²⁾: the number of daily commuters using public transportation networks, the percentage of residential buildings…

National to local news outlets have been covering the flight of the wealthy to destinations like the Hamptons and exclusive ski towns and the potential for them to bring Covid-19 with them, simmering tensions between year-round residents and part-time residents / visitors. We dove into the data to see if we can put some numbers behind the concerns of the locals by looking at 19 popular second-home locations across the country and the 30+ counties they encompass. …