Team Name: Team BaseCheck
- Grady Thompson (Project Manager)
- Shareen Chang (Designer)
- Akoly Vongdala (Developer)
- Trey Michaels (Developer)
Ensuring that every person has an accessible opportunity to stay well-informed about the pandemic
While the COVID-19 pandemic spans across the globe, the situation varies from country to country, state to state, and even county by county. Total case and death numbers are widely reported in the news and on social media, but finding local/county case information like total cases, death, and risk factors can be challenging. People can use the COVID-19 tracker provided by the CDC, but if users want to know about the COVID status in their own specific county, since there is no search function, users have to manually scroll through a long list of counties in America or use the map functionality to slowly hover through each area to find a specific county. This can be frustrating for users who live in a state with many counties such as Texas which has 254 counties. The time it takes to find a location could lead to a user getting discouraged and giving up, or a user not being able to check as frequently. Without the search functionality users can end up spending more time looking for their specific county COVID-19 cases, death, and risk factors which are important information to concerned individuals, families, and essential workers who may be more at risk to exposure from their external environment. We need to utilize digital technology to enhance public health education and help individuals to make informed decisions and understand the risks associated with leaving their homes during COVID times [1]. Being able to search for counties would allow users to quickly and more frequently check the COVID-19 cases, death, and risk levels in their area or other areas of interest, so they can be informed about the risk for themselves and people they care about.
[1] Ting, D.S.W., Carin, L., Dzau, V. and Wong, T.Y. 2020. Digital technology and COVID-19. Nature Medicine. 26, 4 (Apr. 2020), 459–461. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0824-5.