Data Viz to Flatten Curve

COVID is moving fast. We need to move faster.

This project seeks to scale up an existing system comprised of talented citizen engineers, computer scientists, clinicians and epidemiologists to rapidly gather, integrate and display data to help inform Ontarios decision-making in response to COVID-19.

We will cement and scale the efforts of a group of over 70 contributors from academia and industry to systematically centralize diverse sets of relevant data and tackle key priority problems in an open source, collaborative way to help produce a fuller picture of challenges related to capacity planning, testing and tracing, regional nuances and intervention planning.

Guided by a team of experts with connections to the formal COVID-19 command structure, this collaborative will help Ontario respond more rapidly and wisely while engaging citizens and developing a future pool of healthcare data science experts. In this way, we will demonstrate how we can innovatively catalyze the application of our multidisciplinary talents to impact Ontarios health and economy by flattening the curve.

This project aims to harness the power of publicly available COVID-19 data and experts in software development, modelling, machine learning and data visualization to rapidly create outputs intended for Ontarios public health experts, health system decision-makers and community leaders to flatten the curve urgently and plan precise NPIs (e.g., physical distancing, school and business closures, travel restrictions) moving forward.

The work will be organized by a series of challenges. Our advisers and core team with connections to the command table, hospitals and public health will prioritize data or analytics needs for the weekones that would support or complement official and expert modeller work. We will use rapid cycle development methods to build cross-functional teams of relevant skill sets from across academia and industry and crowdsource solutions. At first, we will focus on rapid responses to needs related to capacity, testing, regions or interventions. We will also keep a view on the horizon where new problems lie related to re-emergence, healthcare workforce planning, non-COVID healthcare ramp-up and relaxing NPIs.

Your donations will help us pull our resources together in the most agile and reliable way possible to accomplish our goals. Thank you for your generosity and help in flattening the curve of COVID-19 in Ontario.

For more information, please visit www.howsmyflattening.ca