How data can help us defeat coronavirus

You have probably spent some of your days at home online. It’s hard to get away from the exponential graphs, stories about COVID-19, and worries about things like hospital capacity. We all want to understand more about the coronavirus to protect ourselves and our families.

In the absence of a vaccine, our best weapon against COVID-19 is data. But we still don’t have enough of it.

If we are going to consider public health measures and reopening segments of our economy, we need as much data as possible. Moreover, we need the tools and models, powered by the data, to bring insight to decision-makers.

Many government leaders recognize this reality as we grapple with how best to resurface from the emergency restrictions they have implemented. Statewide and national data collection has been helpful, but the battle against COVID-19 is fought primarily at the local level. Mayors and county judges open and close parks, declare businesses as essential and implement myriad policies based on their real-time assessment of conditions. As you might guess, local data is the most useful for local decision-makers.

Here in North Texas, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson included in his first set of emergency regulations reporting requirements for public, private and commercial laboratories in the city. A subsequent regulation required hospitals to provide hospital bed and ventilator capacity numbers as we prepare for a possible surge in cases.

Johnson called for Dallas County to release more information about race and ethnicity, to spot disproportionate effects of the disease, and the county quickly began to do so.

At the mayor’s request, scholars from the University of Texas at Dallas are working with the city and county to analyze available data. Joining a community of scientists from other universities and the medical community, we hope to use this data to help elected leaders answer questions about what comes next. We are still in the early stages of this process, and we’ve created a dashboard with key data points

We know how crucial useful data is to policymaking. For example, the Institute for Urban Policy Research at UTD has worked closely with Dallas City Council member Jennifer Staubach Gates to analyze data about domestic violence. This data has helped drive policy decisions and changes at the police department and has helped lay the groundwork for the capacity data shared among domestic violence shelters in North Texas today. Gates was also asked by the mayor to assist with our COVID-19 effort.

COVID-19 is a novel and frightening disease, but in the abstract, it isn’t so different from other policy problems, such as domestic violence. In both cases, we can use data to study the problem, track it, predict it, recommend solutions and make adjustments.

In this dark time, I firmly believe that data can help us shine a light.