As COVID-19 spreads, there is one thing that can move faster than the virus: data.
We believe that data is our most powerful tool against the novel coronavirus pandemic.
With guidance and leadership from our government partners, we are supporting large-scale technical activities that empower African leaders to respond to the crisis in a data-driven way.
COVID-19 Risk Models for Sub-Saharan Africa
To help countries identify highest risk areas for COVID spread and proactively prepare or respond, Cooper/Smith developed open source risk models for all countries in Sub-saharan Africa. The models establish a base understanding of at-risk populations at the lowest available administrative unit.
The models incorporate two risk indicators that are known to aid in the transmission and adverse outcomes of COVID-19; Population Density and Percent of Population >60 years of age.
Policy-makers at the national level can download the model free on GitHub for their country.
Malawi Ministry of Health:
COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Operations Center
Cooper/Smith is a leading technology partner of the Malawi Ministry of Health, providing technical assistance to support the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In partnership with the Ministry, the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL), Luke International (LIN), and other partners, we support the government through a range of high-efficiency, high-impact projects that are making data a central part of Malawi’s COVID response.
Hyper-localized models
Cooper/Smith has built hyper-localized epidemiological and risk models that describe the overall ranking of areas in the country by economic vulnerability.
These models empower government decision-makers to use data to develop and enforce social distancing policies and make smarter decisions for the country’s economy.
Interactive dashboards demonstrate the impact of policy measures on the spread of COVID-19 by estimating contact rate reduction and policy adherence using Google Mobility data.
Public Health Emergency Operations Center (EOC)
Cooper/Smith is a leading partner in developing and enhancing data products to support the government’s Public Health Emergency Operations Center. The EOC serves as the data-driven core of the government’s pandemic response, leveraging routine and novel data sources to give the country an edge against the rapidly-evolving pandemic.
Internal EOC dashboard
Public EOC dashboard
Data Dashboards
Internal data dashboards, powered by Tableau, serve as the primary source of near-real time data for decision-makers, helping them monitor:
Total confirmed COVID cases, total recoveries and total deaths
Epidemiological curve and case data by location, gender, and transmission type
Case reporting frequency by location
Map of confirmed case distribution and age and gender distribution by case outcome
Lab status examining cumulative tests by positive results and number of tests per confirmed cases.
Public-facing dashboards provide transparency into daily monitoring of travel into the country and individual follow-up by health officials.
Incident Management System (IMS)
To manage its COVID response in a data-driven way, the Malawi Ministry of Health and Emergency Operations Center are using Asana, a user-friendly, web-based project management platform, to run the country’s Incident Management System (IMS).
Together with Cooper/Smith, Luke International, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF), and the CDC, the Ministry has developed the platform and workflows necessary to address phone calls and texts, social media messages, and meeting action items, and turn these into trackable tasks that can be acted on quickly by medical staff and policy-makers.
The IMS is staffed by triage and operations managers who process incoming notifications about potential COVID infections or risky behaviors 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
These managers create a task in Asana which is triaged and addressed by various sections of the EOC like the logistics planning unit, funding unit or digital support unit.
Data dashboards and reports are published on a daily basis for IMS managers and Ministry policy-makers using Tableau.
Analyses and Approaches on Medium
Throughout the year, Cooper/Smith has actively followed the spread of the pandemic through a critical and evidence-based lens, publishing evaluations and thought-pieces about the crisis as well as links to our latest modeling work on Medium.
Forthcoming posts will focus on how-to videos for country-level risk modeling and additional perspective pieces on how our global community is responding to this public health crisis.
View our insights on Medium
If you would like to learn more about how we are supporting governments in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, write to us at contact@coopersmith.org or visit our Medium blog.