The University of the Philippines Cebu Central Visayas Center for Informatics (CENVI), a Department of Science and Technology-funded project under the NICER program, created last May 5 a story map showing the series of events that took place after the first COVID-19 cases were reported in Cebu City.
“COVID-19 Brief : A Timeline in Maps” lays down the story with a map of highly urbanized Cebu City as well as its 80 barangays, divided into urban (lowlands) and rural (highlands), and delineated by population density. The map also shows the places in the highly dense residential areas of Cebu City where “social distancing”, which means staying ideally two meters away from other people, is virtually impossible.
The timeline of Cebu City’s battle against COVID-19 begins on April 1, after the Cebu City Health Department reported the first 20 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Cebu City on March 29 and released a breakdown by barangay on April 1. The map goes on to plot the progression of the number of cases per barangay one week later, and on April 15.
The story map also focuses on Barangay Luz, which had an outbreak of cases, particularly in Sitio Zapatera. By April 22, another community, the Cebu City Jail, had become a hotspot. By April 30, the City Government ordered the extension of the enhanced community quarantine to May 15 as the city continued to record a high number of cases as mass testing was employed.
The story map also shows the number of deaths and recoveries, financial aid deployed, and the number of Bayanihan Response Centers. The map then projects into the future or the “new normal” through Project Balik Buhay, which aims to transition the city from enhanced to general community quarantine.
The UP Cebu CENVI makes use of computing techniques to produce solutions to pressing environmental problems, which in 2020 includes constantly mapping and monitoring the progression of a fast-spreading viral pandemic in its localities. Among the products being offered by the UP Cebu CENVI are remote sensing and GIS, climate and disaster risk assessment, DRRM-CCA, ecosystem conservation and management, web and database management, policy research, and Visualization and analytics
In a related news, according to a latest update, UP Cebu’s CoVcheck web app, which was developed by the FireCheck Project team and UP Cebu, now includes mass testing data entry, patient monitoring, and dashboard functionalities for LGUs. Interested LGUs may contact CovCheck.
(This was originally posted on the UP System website on May 21, 2020)