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Researchers from the Cybersecurity and Data Science Laboratory of the University of Murcia (UMU) make the COnVIDa platform available to society to analyze Covid-19 in Spain. COnVIDa, unlike existing platforms, makes it possible to easily collect relevant data on the situation in Spain from different official data sources, unified and graphically compared.

For the first time in this pandemic, a single website brings together MoMo databases to analyze daily mortality, AEMET, which relates the differences between time and virus, the National Statistics Institute (INE) or population mobility. In this way, all the data from different sources is collected on a single website, allowing it to be easily compared and downloaded for analysis.

This issue will facilitate decision-making by public authorities and private managers, the work of researchers interested in studying the pandemic and the collection of information by journalists and citizens who are interested in learning about the evolution and correlation of different aspects of the pandemic. "In this sense, COnVIDa will allow us to know what impact previous decisions have had in different areas of health or socio-economic nature (for example, destroyed employment), in order to, based on objective data, be able to make better decisions", explains Félix Gómez Mármol, researcher at the UMU and promoter of the project. Live platform The initiative arises when asking what they could contribute from their knowledge to this "so dramatic" situation.

Valuing their computer skills they opted to create this website.

Since then, UMU researchers have been working more than a month for piecework to offer a useful tool to society in the shortest possible time. However, despite being carried out in record time, the entire team stresses that the work has been carried out with a human effort that is not sustainable over time, since it has been carried out so far without receiving any additional funding. "More human resources are needed that can contribute to the development of the project and thus guarantee its viability and true utility for society," requests Gómez Mármol. For now this platform will continue to live and evolve in the coming weeks.

The researchers hope to incorporate data corresponding to the daily increase and the rate per 100,000 inhabitants of cases, discharges, deceased and hospitalized, as well as implement epidemiological models to predict the evolution of the pandemic, or even new sources of information. Tool for everyone The tool consists of two main components: the web itself and a programming library, which is the one that is really in charge of collecting data from different sources.

This library has been developed in such a way that it is relatively easy to add new data variables, or even new data sources.

Such versatility could be exploited by other researchers with programming skills. "Our idea is, following the spirit of open science, to publish as soon as possible all the source code of the tool, both from the page and the programming library, also attaching the corresponding developer manuals," explains the researcher.

. In this way, COnVIDa can be adapted to other countries and regions, or, for example, incorporate the results by provinces within an autonomous community and even by health areas.

Source: Universidad de Murcia