Interactive Visual Analysis of COVID-19

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It was first detected in China in December 2019. It spreads between people in close contact. On the 11th March 2020 the WHO declared the outbreak of the virus as a pandemic, which signaled a significant acceleration in the global response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and recognized the widespread transmission of the virus across multiple countries and continents. Data regarding COVID-19 was gathered and made available for open access. These data sources offer invaluable information for tracking, raising awareness and understanding of COVID-19, recognizing its impact, as well as informing the general public, health authorities, policy makers, situation managers and decision makers. However, COVID-19 data in its raw form is complex and difficult to understand and analyze. The application of visualization together with human factor design principles in a complex systems framework provides an effective means for exploiting these big and complex datasets. These techniques can transform such inherently non-visual data into intuitive visual forms that enable users to gain insight into, and understanding of, information contained within the data. This paper discusses the application of visualization and development of interactive dashboards, set in a complex systems framework, to provide an effective means for the users to explore, analyze and gain awareness of the situation, thus enabling informed decision making.