Data Science-Project-Visualize the Coronavirus Pandemic
Amit Kumar
AI Engineer | Gen AI | Agentic AI | LLM | RAG | Machine Learning | Computer Vision | NLP | Deep Learning |
I believe that it is the most effective method to illustrate and explain complex information, especially numerical data, in a simple and digestible manner. Also when performed properly, visualizing data can reduce or help mitigate bias in data interpretation.
One of my favorite types of visualizations is animated choropleth maps. Given that there’s a pandemic going on right now, I thought that now would be a good time to demonstrate the power of animated choropleth maps.
In this article, you’ll learn the following:
- What choropleth maps are
- When and why they are most effective to use
Choropleth Maps
A choropleth map is a type of thematic map where areas or regions are shaded in proportion to a given data variable.
Static choropleth maps are most useful when you want to compare a desired variable by region. For example, if you wanted to compare the crime rate of each state in the US at a given moment, you could visualize it with a static choropleth.
An animated or dynamic choropleth map is similar to a static choropleth map, except that you can compare a variable by region, over time. This adds a third dimension of information and is what makes these visualizations so interesting and powerful.
Visualizing the Coronavirus Pandemic
The data that I used to create the following visualizations is the Novel Corona Virus 2019 dataset from Kaggle. The dataset is a composite of multiple sources including the World Health Organization, National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China, and the United States Centers for Disease Control.
Note: If anyone of these sources fails to provide accurate and timely data, the visualizations may be skewed or inaccurate.
Static Choropleth
Below is a static choropleth of the total number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus by country as of March 28, 2020. You can see that the countries with the leading number of cases include the US, China, and Italy, along with a couple of other European countries.
Animated Choropleth Map
You can see how much more effective and engaging an animated choropleth map is compared to a static one. Here, we’re looking at the total number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus by country over time. You can see how China has had the most number of cases by far until very recently.