Data Heroes to the Rescue

Several unlikely data heroes have emerged in recent months to help people gain critical access to COVID-19 information.

One of these is Suman Khatri, a software engineer who has been here for almost a year now. He founded the @Covid19Tas Twitter account which provides statistical summaries of Tasmanian cases in an easy-to-read format.

Originally from Nepal, he said his grand motivation was to contribute to the place he now calls home.

“The help and love that I have received from Tasmanians is very overwhelming, which was one of the reasons I wanted to return the favour back to the people,” he told Tasmanian Times. This project has been the best platform for me to connect with people and help them. I will try my best and hopefully will be able to come up with other various ways to help people.”

“I wanted to help most of Tasmanians with one of the burning questions: ‘what the distribution by region’, ‘How many related to NW Outbreak?’ and more,” he said. “To my surprise, I could not find that information anywhere, so I decided to step up and take the opportunity.”

Data collection was not the only plan from the beginning; he wanted to do something more with the data. “I wanted to find out the sources for all cases and represent them on a graphic – one of the things I enjoy doing.” He therefore decided to do infographic posts on Twitter to reach a wide audience and ‘answer a lot of questions we all are having’.

He said that as there wasn’t much information on break-down provided by the state, it took a little longer than what he had expected.

“The project is still in its early phase, so there is still a lot more to do and achieve. I want to take this project to new heights and try to make it as informative to people as possible.”

He is now planning to have a Facebook page, so that people who are not using Twitter can also get access to the information via Facebook and other form of Social media. Similarly, an interactive website is under construction.

“I am planning to make it as informative as possible and interactive. And finally, if we get more data breakdown from the department, a mobile application is also on the planned list.”

He said feedback has been almost 100% positive. “That gives me extra fuel to continue my journey and reach as many people as possible. Often time, I get asked one question from a lot of people ‘active cases by region’, sadly to that, I have no answer. Only answer I can give to them is “no information provided by state government”. But I can assure that one day, I will be able to get those information and answer people. I have been working to get that answer from the department.”

Born and raised in Kathmandu, he came to Melbourne in 2016 to pursue a career in Information Technology and completed a Bachelors degree. He then had an ‘exciting opportunity’ to work as a Software Developer in Hobart and thus moved to Tasmania. He is still working from his office with extra precaution and care, abiding all the social distancing measures.

“Apart from the natural beauty and people of Tasmania, I love the Tasmanian food. I was lucky to attend food festivals and more events. Have to say it, I loved all the Tasmanian people I have met so far, very helpful.”

Migga

Suman’s site might end up looking like that of Anthony ‘Migga’ Macali who runs the www.covidlive.com.au platform.

In his day job he’s a Melbourne-based Business Intelligence and Reporting Manager for Sensis. In his 24/7 volunteer job he posts updates to the site on all numbers to do with coronavirus in Australia: cases, tests, recoveries, ICU patients, hospitalisations, deaths, active cases, source of infection and community transmission.

National totals are provided as well as state-by-state breakdowns. Data is displayed for the previous 7 days so the trends are easy to see.

“I started tracking the stats because personally I want to know up-to-date numbers during the day, and I couldn’t find them,” he said. “Governments were doing updates once a day, but they were slow. So searched everyone I could, and discovered the press conferences and state health websites each day.”

He said there were questions at the start about the integrity of the data, but as he shared the sources people began to trust more.

“People are very happy (with the site), especially numbers like ICU/community transmission/tests which are a little more difficult to find,” he said about the response to his website.

“It’s important because…how do we know if we’re doing the right thing in the country? How do we measure our performance? How do we know if social distancing is working or if we’re flattening the curve? The data provides all these insights.”

He belives that the site can help reduce the anxiety around all the numbers. “Every day the news presents case increases/percentage increases. But I provide history so we get some context, we can compare.

“I usually have a lots of hobbies – films, sport and so on – but the pandemic has taken them away. I’ve diverted my spare time into COVID-19…Every day I hound journalists on Twitter, stream press conferences and type large numbers into little boxes.” he laughed.

“I appreciate the updates Tasmanian Times have produced lately: they have been very specific and comprehensive and I’ve used them many times recently.”

Jes

Pioneering work in the information space was led by Jes, who describes herself as ‘a simple Queensland lass’.

A long eight weeks ago she started the @Covid_Australia Twitter account which has grown to a whopping 64 thousand followers. The information she compiles is also displayed on a stand-alone website.

“When we first started getting confirmed cases in Australia I went looking for a tally,” she says about how it all began. “There wasn’t one, so I started doing it. Thought I’d share on Twitter for other like-minded people.”

“The response was amazing. With so much uncertainty, I think my tweets were a form of communication that was (is) keeping people updated regularly.”

Working as a risk and business continuity manager for a private company, she says her boss approves and she is able to do updates while continuing her job.

She said she just like many who stepped up to fill gaps, “especially knowing and understanding how incredibly busy our government departments are right now.”

Jes had been following coronavirus since first reports came out of Wuhan. “I’d be looking for and tallying information anyway, so I thought I may as well share it,” she reflected.

“I really love sharing people’s data analysis and charts of our situation in Australia, particularly in each state. It gives people a stream of data they can visually process.”

And how long will she be able to maintain the enormous effort she is putting in for the sake of public information?

“I’ll run this until the bitter end. I’m fully committed now!”