Melinda Laituri, Yogya Kalra, and Chaowei Yang explored the ephemeral nature of COVID-19 data dashboards. While these dashboards were essential for tracking the pandemic, the study found that 66% of the 193 reviewed dashboards are no longer available. Although they provided key metrics such as case numbers and vaccination rates, only 17% included geospatial visualizations, missing an opportunity to deliver deeper insights into regional trends and public health interventions. The study calls for coordinated efforts to standardize, store and maintain this critical geospatial data for long-term use. Ensuring its availability would enable ongoing analysis, research and monitoring to address both current and future public health issues as well as other challenges that may arise. (The research is partially supported by State Department membership and NASA AIST membership.)
