Reply To: Week 1 Topic discussion 2

[Hteik Htar Tin]

I like the data visualization tools for decision support in COVID 19 surveillance and response. In COVID 19 pandemic period, enormous big data were collected through nationwide surveillance sites. If the public health professionals cannot use the information technology for presenting the result of those data analysis, the responses for prevention will be delayed. To make an important decision for public health intervention, the decision makers must clearly see the epidemiological trend of infection. In COVID-19 dashboards, time-series charts and geographic maps were focused to display and it helped to understand the region-level statistics to case-level coordinate data. After that, the policymakers and public gave much attention to watch the data dashboard in real-time. Some dashboard can show contact tracing, status of patients and social distancing directives. Those dashboard data are streaming through mass media like TV channels as daily practice to raise the community awareness. Data is just data if we cannot extract information form it. And it is not information hierarchy if we cannot share the knowledge from the information. So, data sharing through visualization works to inform and educate the public by effective communication way.