Spatiotemporal visualization for the global COVID-19 surveillance by balloon chart

Area of Science:

• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Data Visualization

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic's global spread necessitates understanding its spatiotemporal dynamics.
• Visualizing the pandemic's progression across continents and countries is crucial for public health insights.

Purpose of the Study:

• To visualize time-associated alterations of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) in the context of continents and countries.
• To compare the progression of the pandemic within a specific period across regions and countries.

Main Methods:

• Utilized COVID-19 case and death data from February to December 2020.
• Generated time-associated balloon charts with epidemiological indicators (crude case fatality rate, morbidity, mortality, total cases).
• Employed Javascript and Vega-Lite for data visualization in browsers.

Main Results:

• The pandemic spread chronologically across UN subregions, with distinct epidemic waves.
• Europe and North America experienced a significant winter wave starting October 2020, with high morbidity.
• Leading mortality rates were observed in several European and American countries by December 2020.

Conclusions:

• Creative visualization integrating 7-dimensional indicators assessed COVID-19 pandemic progression.
• The methodology offers a flexible tool for public health workers and policymakers to understand epidemic dynamics.
• This approach aids in comparative analysis of transmissibility and severity across regions.