The COVID-19 Impact Analysis Platform provides data and insight on COVID-19’s impact on mobility, health, economy, and society for all states and counties with daily data updates. The platform was originally developed by Dr. Lei Zhang’s group at the Maryland Transportation Institute (MTI) in partnership with the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Laboratory (CATT Lab). A multidisciplinary team of researchers are now making their COVID-19 data and research findings available to inform the general public and support decision making through this platform. Metrics are produced based on validated computational algorithms and privacy-protected data from mobile devices, government agencies, healthcare system, and other sources. The platform will evolve and expand over time as new metrics are computed and additional visualizations and decision support tools are developed.
Since its launch in April 2020, the MTI platform has provided decision support to a growing number of federal, state, and county agencies.
- The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) uses MTI metrics to track the daily number of trips by distance bands across the United States
- The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) integrates MTI mobility and social distancing data into epidemic models for prediction of future cases and numbers of deaths
- The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs uses the platform’s Society and Economy Reopening Assessment (SERA) to help determine when to reopen certain facilities in specific states and counties
- The U.S. Department of Treasury and Federal Reserve System uses mobility and economic metrics available on the platform for economic and financial impact analysis
- MTI has partnered with Prince Georges’ County, Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Howard County, and other local governments in Maryland to provide data that can provide early warning of hotspots and assist in a targeted response.
DATA AND METRICS SUMMARY
The COVID-19 Impact Analysis Platform currently contains the following 39 metrics at the national, state, and county levels in the United States with daily updates unless otherwise specified.
| Current Metrics | Description |
| Category A: Mobility and Social Distancing | |
| Social distancing index* | An integer from 0~100 that represents the extent residents and visitors are practicing social distancing. “0” indicates no social distancing is observed in the community, while “100” indicates all residents are staying at home and no visitors are entering the county. See “Method” page for details. Calculated by MTI. |
| % staying home | Percentage of residents staying at home (i.e., no trips with a non-home trip end more than one mile away from home). Calculated by MTI. |
| Trips/person | Average number of all trips taken per person per day. Calculated by MTI. |
| % out-of-county trips | Percentage of all trips that cross county borders. Calculated by MTI. |
| % out-of-state trips* | Percentage of all trips that cross state borders. Calculated by MTI. |
| Miles/person | Average person-miles traveled on all modes (car, train, bus, plane, bike, walk, etc.) per person per day. Calculated by MTI. |
| Work trips/person | Number of work trips per person per day (where a “work trip” is defined as going to or coming home from work location). Calculated by MTI. |
| Non-work trips/person | Number of non-work trips per person per day. Additional information on trip purpose (grocery, park, restaurant, etc.) is available, but not currently shown on the platform. Calculated by MTI. |
| Transit mode share | Percentage of rail and bus transit mode share. Source: baseline transit mode share from ACS; MTI is currently updating this metric with dynamic transit mode share based on mobility data. |
| Category B: COVID and Health | |
| New COVID cases | Number of COVID-19 daily new cases. Source: JHU COVID-19 data repository. |
| New cases/1000 people* | Number of COVID-19 daily new cases per 1000 people (three-day moving average). Calculated by MTI based on JHU repository. |
| Active cases/1000 people | Number of active COVID-19 cases per 1000 people. Calculated by MTI. |
| Imported COVID cases* | Number of daily external trips by infectious persons from out of state/county. Calculated by MTI. |
| COVID exposure/1000 people | Number of residents already exposed to coronavirus per 1000 people. Calculated by MTI. |
| # days: decreasing COVID cases | Number of days with decreasing COVID-19 cases. Calculated by MTI based on weekly pattern of new daily cases. |
| # days: decreasing ILI cases* | Number of days with decreasing influenza-like illness trend. Calculated by MTI using CDC Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report. |
| Testing capacity gap* | Ability to provide enough tests based on World Health Organization-recommended positive test rate proxy. High positive test rates indicate a lack of sufficient testing and testing capacity gap. Source: The COVID tracking project. |
| Tests done/1000 people | Number of COVID-19 tests already completed per 1000 people. Source: The COVID tracking project. |
| # contact tracing workers/1000 people* | Number of contact tracing workers per 100,000 people. Source: NPR survey of state public health departments. |
| % hospital bed utilization* | % hospital beds occupied with patients. Calculated by MTI using ESRI: US Hospital Beds Dashboard and IMHE COVID-19 projections |
| % ICU utilization* | % ICU unites occupied with COVID-19 patients. Calculated by MTI using ESRI: US Hospital Beds Dashboard , The COVID Tracking Project , and IMHE COVID-19 projections. |
| Hospital beds/1000 people | Number of staffed hospital beds per 1000 people. Source: ESRI: US Hospital Beds Dashboard |
| ICUs/1000 people | Number of ICU beds per 1000 people. Source: ESRI: US Hospital Beds Dashboard. MTI could not find a source with daily or weekly updates on this metric. |
| Ventilator needs* | Number of ventilators needed for COVID-19 patients. Source: IHME COVID-19 projections. |
| Category C: Economic Impact | |
| Unemployment claims/1000 people | New weekly unemployment insurance claims/1000 workers. Source: Department of Labor. |
| Unemployment rate* | Unemployment rate updated weekly. Calculated by MTI and periodically adjusted to match federal agency statistics. |
| % working from home* | Percentage of workforce working from home based on UMD models. Calculated by MTI based on changes in work trips and unemployment claims. |
| Cumulative inflation rate | Overall economic condition measured by cumulative inflation rate since COVID-19 outbreak. Calculated by MTI based on CPI data from Bureau of Labor Statistics. |
| % change in consumption* | % change in consumption from the pre-pandemic baseline based on observed changes in trips to various types of consumption sites as a proxy. Calculated by MTI. |
| Category D: Vulnerable Population | |
| % people older than 60* | Percent of population above the age of 60. Source: Census Bureau. |
| Median income | Median income. Source: Census Bureau. |
| % African Americans | Percentage of African Americans. Source: Census Bureau. |
| % Hispanic Americans | Percentage of Hispanic Americans. Source: Census Bureau. |
| % male | Percentage of male. Source: Census Bureau. |
| Population density | Population density. Source: Census Bureau. |
| Employment density | Employment density. Source: Smart Location Database. |
| # hot spots/1000 people | Number of points of interests for crowd gathering per 1000 people. Calculated by MTI. |
| COVID death rate* | % deaths among all COVID-19 cases. Calculated by MTI based on number of deaths and estimated total COVID cases including confirmed and untested cases. |
| Population | Total population in a state or county. Source: Census Bureau. |
* These variables are used in the Society and Economy Assessment (SERA) tool.
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