How a Chinese researcher devised the world’s most cited Covid dashboard
- Dong Ensheng was the force behind the Johns Hopkins Covid map, which will end updates soon
- The dashboard became a key tool for governments to understand the virus and find ways to fight back
Dong’s scientific mind began thinking about the situation. Then one day, after discussing the situation over a coffee with his professor, Lauren Gardner, Dong began to devise a system to track coronavirus cases.
At the time, Dong had no idea that a project he had begun working on for his doctorate thesis would evolve into such a comprehensive and powerful public health resource over the course of the pandemic.
The tracking map Dong developed has since become known as the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Centre – the JHU Covid-19 map. It has been a valuable tool used by governments to understand the development of the pandemic and how to tailor policies based on the data. The map had also helped the public understand the scale of the outbreaks, Dong said.
The Coronavirus Resource Centre has also been a source of information about other key trends, such as disparities in the rates of disease spread and health outcomes related to factors such as race, income and access to private health insurance.
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Since the website’s launch, the dashboard has been viewed more than 3.6 billion times globally, according to the university.
