The Global COVID-19 Viewer developed by NASA's Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), operated by Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), was the subject of the first NASA Earthdata Webinar of fiscal year 2021, "SEDAC's Global COVID-19 Viewer: A User-Friendly Tool for Assessing National and Subnational Trends and Risk Factors in Coronavirus Spread."
The October 28 webinar was given by Alex de Sherbinin, SEDAC deputy manager and CIESIN associate director for Science Applications, and Joe Schumacher, SEDAC user services manager and CIESIN senior information specialist. Approximately 110 participants learned about the development of the Global COVID-19 Viewer, launched in March 2020 and updated most recently in September. The webinar included a live demonstration of the tool, which lets users visualize spatially-explicit trends in COVID-19 infection and mortality rates, including daily updated global data on COVID-19 cases and deaths in relationship to population density and key risk factors. The demo focused on current hotspots, interesting trends, and an exploration of risk factors.
On November 2, Jolynn Schmidt, program manager-data lead for the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) program managed by CIESIN, participated in a workshop at the 7th 2020 GeONG Forum, a virtual gathering of international humanitarian and development organizations. The workshop focused on different approaches and lessons learned in defining health catchment areas and assessing the number of people in them, which is important for estimating the potential number of patients and demand on health facilities. Schmidt presented her experience working to strengthen developing countries' capabilities for mapping population distribution, human settlements, and other core spatial data layers.