Geographical tracking and mapping of coronavirus disease COVID-19/severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemic and associated events around the world: how 21st century GIS technologies are supporting the global fight against outbreaks and epidemics

Abstract

In December 2019, a new virus (initially called 'Novel Coronavirus 2019-nCoV' and later renamed to SARS-CoV-2) causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (coronavirus disease COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, and rapidly spread to other parts of China and other countries around the world, despite China's massive efforts to contain the disease within Hubei. As with the original SARS-CoV epidemic of 2002/2003 and with seasonal influenza, geographic information systems and methods, including, among other application possibilities, online real-or near-real-time mapping of disease cases and of social media reactions to disease spread, predictive risk mapping using population travel data, and tracing and mapping super-spreader trajectories and contacts across space and time, are proving indispensable for timely and effective epidemic monitoring and response. This paper offers pointers to, and describes, a range of practical online/mobile GIS and mapping dashboards and applications for tracking the 2019/2020 coronavirus epidemic and associated events as they unfold around the world. Some of these dashboards and applications are receiving data updates in near-real-time (at the time of writing), and one of them is meant for individual users (in China) to check if the app user has had any close contact with a person confirmed or suspected to have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the recent past. We also discuss additional ways GIS can support the fight against infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics.

Keywords: COVID-19; GIS; SARS-CoV-2.

Fig. 1

Johns Hopkins University CSSE is tracking the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in near real time with a map-centric dashboard (using ArcGIS Online) that pulls relevant data from the WHO, US CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), ECDC (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control), Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC), NHC (China’s National Health Commission), and Dingxiangyuan (DXY, China). Screenshot date: 16 February 2020

Fig. 2

The WHO COVID-19 situation dashboard. Screenshot date: 16 February 2020

Fig. 3

Screenshot of HealthMap for Wuhan Coronavirus showing a number of news articles and alerts about the first case of COVID-19 reported in Africa (Egypt) on 13 February 2020. Screenshot date: 17 February 2020. (HealthMap uses base map data from Google.)

Fig. 4

Screenshot of HealthMap’s ‘outbreaks near me’ taken on 17 February 2020. User location has been correctly detected in the United Kingdom, and the expanded news box for London, UK, shows a number of news stories about nearby COVID-19 cases in the UK (nine cases as of 17 February 2020). China’s ‘close contact detector’ platform (see below) expands this concept of ‘outbreaks near me’ in a very much more detailed fashion (much finer location granularity). (HealthMap uses base map data from Google.)

Fig. 5

Screenshots of the ‘close contact detector’ app/platform and related online location-based inquiry services in China. Functions include close contact inquiry, including train journey number and plane flight number checking for diagnosed cases, and location information about the activity spaces of nearby confirmed cases (no individual names are ever displayed in returned results). These screenshots were taken on 17 February 2020

Fig. 6

The Guangzhou Underground COVID-19 tracking and notification service. The actual practical value and ultimate success of such services deployed for the first time should be documented and confirmed at the end of the outbreak, so that the world community can learn from the experience

Fig. 7

Left: High-speed rail (in purple; 2016) and domestic flights (2018) into and out of Wuhan. Right: International flights leaving Wuhan (partial map; 2018). Wuhan, a major regional transit hub, connects directly to dozens of cities in China. Despite strong actions to curb the spread, an estimated five million people potentially exposed to the virus had already left Wuhan before the city was placed under quarantine, complicating containment efforts. Understanding travel patterns can help health authorities worldwide establish quarantine stations and passenger screening programmes at major international airports

Fig. 8

Screenshot of the tweet by @Mehdi_Moussaid on 3 February 2020 featuring an animated map of the worldwide propagation of the hashtag #coronavirus on Twitter (in green) and the actual cases of coronavirus (in red) between 24 and 31 January 2020