Daily Updates
The site receives daily updates for each country and state. The sources can be viewed on the references page.
Simple Layout
Each page has the same layout, a graph of positivity rate, daily deaths, hospitalized currently, and active cases.
Work in Progress…
Each page has the same layout, a graph of positivity rate, daily deaths, hospitalized currently, and active cases.
The Importance of Positivity Rate
The positivity rate is calculated by dividing the number of cases by the number of tests, which is then multiplied by 100. The resulting value gives the percentage of positive tests. This allows comparisons between smaller and larger countries and/or states, since we are not relying on the number of cases.
Deaths Per Capita
Deaths per capita is a great measure to compare the number of deaths from COVID-19 of each country and/or state to another. The value is also a good measure that shows how well the country or state has handled the pandemic. In this case, it is calculated by dividing the number of deaths by the population size, then the value is multiplied by 10,000.
How it started…
The website was created in March 2020 at around the time COVID-19 infections were increasing drastically in Europe, especially in Italy. When the website first started, the information was only available for Italy and its regions. I then started to add a few more countries, including Spain, Germany, France, and the UK. In April, I stopped updating the site since it was too much work to do manually.
During Summer 2020, I decided to give it another try, but not by taking the same approach. I decided to use Python combined with JSON files. This allowed me to make the site somewhat automated, as well as the opportunity to add more countries.
I decided to focus on positivity rate due to the fact that it is much more relevant than the number of cases. The number of cases depends on the number of tests performed, so cases may be going up only due to the increase in tests. However, by using positivity rate it allows us not to worry about the number of cases or tests, since we are looking at the percentage of positive tests.
I wish that the data can provide you a better overall understanding on the COVID-19 crisis, as well as the status of your country during this pandemic.