STRATA KK CREATED ONE OF JAPAN'S FIRST REAL-TIME, OPEN-SOURCE, COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS TRACKER.

THE SITUATION

COVID-19 is already making its impact on the economy, and our social interactions felt. With megacities such as Tokyo being home to over 39 million people, the presence of an infectious agent that threatens a mortality rate of 3% is uppermost in many people’s minds.

Managing data flow through a pipeline to create simple metrics and visualizations that assist people in making sense of data is a core part of our service. We are also passionate about empowering open and supportive communities. Here at Strata KK, we believe that such communities are the best way for everyone to grow together.

THE CHALLENGE

Creating an app to allow interested parties to track the progress of the COVID-19 Coronavirus; while providing the community with an open-source tool, to further their understanding of such technologies-well, it simply made sense (and it took less than 24 hours of work).

THE SOLUTION

The app makes use of a Google sheet to collate the data. This data is processed using two JavaScript libraries, Mapbox and D3.js, which present the data as user-friendly visuals.

The biggest challenge we faced was ensuring that the data was clean. We had to verify that patients were not duplicated in the dataset. Also, the data structure was non-standard, as every prefecture applied different patient ID systems. The government even changed their patient ID system partway through the setting up of this data-gathering exercise.

THE OUTCOME

As of April 2020, the app has seen well over 2,000,000 unique users and 20 members of the community actively contribute to the data pipeline.

The tool is evidently popular, based on its usage statistics. The Japan Times has integrated the app within its Coronavirus-outbreak-updates page. Data scientists are forking the repository from GitHub. For example, a researcher from Kyoto University is now providing the visualizations for Sri Lanka and it has also been adapted for the Indian state of Kerala. We will watch with interest how the community continues to make use of it.

It will also be interesting, we are sure, to see how people use technology to innovate during the Coronavirus challenge. With schools closed, online learning resources may plug the gap. With commuting via public transport creating some of the highest densities of people, cloud-based tools that allow people to work from home can reduce potential exposures. In times of crisis, technological innovations are increasingly able to assist us to mitigate the challenges.