VACLab works with NC DHHS in response to COVID-19 Crisis

As the COVID-19 pandemic has spread around the globe, its impacts have rippled through nearly every aspect of daily life. From ventilator shortages to school closures to unemployment, the scope of the tragedy is enormous and its effects will be long lasting. This is true even for those whose friends and family are lucky enough to escape the health effects of the disease itself.

The VACLab is not immune from these challenges. Many of us have family in past or present hotspots around the world, from China to the New York City region. We also have local effects with the University campus closing; our normal routine of research disrupted; our courses delayed and moved online; and the general anxiety brought on by social distancing measures and the worry of what the disease might mean for those we love.

Yet despite these challenges, the VACLab has mobilized in response to the global pandemic. Looking for ways to give back to our communities, VACLab teammates have temporarily put aside some of our research projects to focus on service projects in collaboration with local partners responding to COVID-19.

We’ll feature a few of these in upcoming posts here on our website. We’ve already posted about one public-facing project that provides set of visualizations which plot the rise of COVID-19 cases and fatalities globally, in the United States, and in North Carolina.

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This post focuses on another project led by VACLab teammates Smiti Kaul and David Gotz. In a volunteer effort, they worked with staff in the NC DHHS branch for Public Health Preparedness & Response to develop an internal (not for the general public) dashboard of morgue facilities across the state of North Carolina. The goal of the project is to keep emergency management staff in county and state governments informed about emerging scarcity of resources, and to help decision makers make effective and timely choices about how resources can be shared in a coordinated response.

DHHS staff survey morgue facilities regularly for updates on capacity and current utilization. The survey data is recorded within a online spreadsheet, and that data is pulled live into the web-based visualization dashboard that is hosted on a VACLab server. The dashboard provides detailed data about individual facilities as well as summary statistics by county or region. An interactive map and other linked visualization-based elements help emergency management personnel quickly navigate the rich set of data assess the current status across the state.

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The DHHS team has been excited about the quick speed of standing up the system and the view it provides to their teams. As our main point of contact stated, “Team, this is incredible, thank you!!" The DHHS team lead emailed later to say “LOVE IT!!! Seriously this is so so helpful for what we are trying to do to keep emergency managers calm and informed with real data. Thank you!!!"

These thanks are a great reward for a volunteer project through which our lab could contribute in our own small way to the COVID-19 response. Yet the real thanks go in the other direction: from us to everyone at NC DHHS who is working each and every day to help overcome this global crisis. Thank YOU for serving on the front lines to keep us healthy!