When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, there was a flurry of data about the virus on many websites, news channels, apps, and social media.
Frédéric Charlier, a New York-based tech entrepreneur, struggled to master scattered data and numbers across various platforms. As governments around the world shared the main points of social distancing and fitness rules on official websites, Charlier learned that there was no moderated forum encouraging fitness discourse about people’s reports of a pandemic.
He saw the perspective of a platform that would consolidate news, data, infographics, non-public reports and COVID-19 conversations around the world.
But Charlier knew he couldn’t do it alone. So he reached out to a network of like-minded entrepreneurs, designers, and knowledge scientists, through Slack channels of a shared workspace, online task fairs, and social media posts, and eventually partnered with six other volunteers who shared their vision. Together, they presented Covid Measures, a virtual platform that visualizes the human effect on the global pandemic through data and experiences, which are collected or provided through educational institutions.
Covid Measures volunteers at a meeting. Photo courtesy of Frédéric Charlier
“We seek to create a holistic picture that is a combination of data, perspective, data aggregation and its effects that can benefit users,” said Charlier, who has delighted in the design of systems and technologies. transportation, to VICE News a video call.
Charlier said the platform was unique in the way it structured the data in terms of countries, the measures implemented, the rules followed and the effect on the respective companies.
The site is minimally designed in shades of white and green and welcomes you with a sign that says “Created through citizens around the world, for citizens”. The opening page provides a review of what is intended to be done, adding the significant effects of COVID-19, corrupted knowledge across the country, and pieces of data on vital measures instilled around the world. A full banner on the left side will allow you to delve into the offers of the, from learning about metrics such as surveillance and trips abroad, to reading how citizens handle government metrics.
The online page uses interactive illustrated infographics on measures that have been implemented around the world.
And then of course there is an opportunity for readers to “Add Impact”, where they can bring their own reports to their countries and the policies of their respective governments.
Covid Measures seeks to facilitate the regulation of the pandemic around the world interactively, providing a map showing countries that require the use of a mask and other global statistics such as the correlation between COVID-19 deaths and age. it even covers the large-scale effects of the pandemic, adding anti-authoritarian protests in Serbia, reducing congestion and pollutants in Belgium, claims for tuition fees in Korea and increased schooling at homes in India.
The sharp appearance of the presents the facts in the most complete way.
While the platform is collectively collaborative, Elaine Khuu, a volunteer who helped build the site, noted that it is another social media.
“It is based on knowledge and focuses on science and facts. It’s different from social media because it’s more about generating opinions,” Khuu, The’s product designer, told VICE News. Khuu has reveled in youth product design and education. He said he sought to organize an information-driven platform, while allowing others to speak brazenly in a constructive environment.
Charlier and his team are aware that their task will not have to contribute to the “infodemic” of desdata. To have a precise knowledge of the rules and their results, they request one source, more than one, and inspire the data closest to the clinical literature. This, before allowing their publication on the site.
“We rely on educational and journalistic resources to download insights into important public fitness statistics,” said Jai Jeffryes, volunteer and knowledge specialist specializing in public fitness.
Jeffryes explained that to circumvent governments that eliminate knowledge or countries subject to censorship, Covid Measures conducts surveys to perceive individual experiences. Lately the online page is conducting surveys on mask projects and trips abroad in more than 150 countries. “We have to be as flexible as imaginable and covers all sides of the story, ” said Charlier.
The Covid Measures platform promotes healthy discourse and conducts research to succeed on the suppression and censorship of knowledge in some countries.
Contributors are encouraged to share the source of the data with the allocation team, but may remain anonymous. “This creates an area for them to open up in a way that they can’t on social media,” Khuu said.
Although the platform is not a social network as Khuu pointed out, Facebook and Twitter remain vital elements to attract an audience to Covid Measures, however, the platform subverts the technical limits of social networks by designing an interactive with infographics and maps for visualize the data. .
It is designed to be interactive and disseminate data through effective visuals.
The online page also hosts a moderated discussion forum to inspire discussion and speech. “We adopt a pro-contra technique where the argument has to justify its position with factual data. This allows the public percentages of contributions and experiences,” said Charlier.
In addition, users of the online page can Covid Measures TV, a segment that references the platform’s YouTube channel, which hosts videos covering topics such as the global government’s reaction to COVID-19.
One of the unique features of the platform is its comparative investigation of deaths from COVID-19 and deaths from other diseases. “Everyone is focused on the victims. We need to put the death toll in a broader context to make it transparent that despite this crisis, there are other disruptions that have an effect on the world,” Charlier said.
The team also tries to compare knowledge in other contexts, for example, by comparing the number of deaths with the number of school years lost and the effect this has on children’s education.
“In the United States especially, there has been a country-centric vision of the pandemic. People like a look,” Jeffryes said.
The ultimate goal, he said, is that data collection now can make decisions about social and fitness policies in the future.
“Zoonotic diseases have proliferated in this century, and I would like to get out of it knowing how to make as many choices as possible at the population point and how we deserve to rise up as citizens.
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VICE APAC has partnered with Covid Measures to inspire more people to share their own reports on the platform.