As the NSW Government announces more and more business where the coronavirus has potentially spread, it’s becoming hard to keep track of all the health alerts in Sydney. Now, there’s a website for that.
Sydney-based geospatial engineer Ken Tsang has created COVID-19 Near Me, an interactive map which marks all of the shops, restaurants and other venues where people are being told to get tested and isolate.
So, instead of waiting for the daily announcements of who should get tested, you can just check the map to see if you’ve been anywhere where a health alert has since been issued. Too easy.
Once you’ve checked a health alert, you can mark it as dismissed until there are any updates for that location.
“We’ll tell you what’s changed since the last time you’ve checked in,” Tsang wrote on Twitter.
Been working on something over the break.
📣 Introducing COVID-19 Near Me (NSW) 😷
A new tool to help you keep track of new case locations using open data from @datansw and @NSWHealth
We’ll tell you what’s changed since the last time you’ve checked inhttps://t.co/Ff2davQ2zB pic.twitter.com/XB0sXeAiUl
— ken tsang (@jxeeno) December 28, 2020
The website also distinguishes between the different kinds of health alerts, which can be a bit tricky to do when you’re just staring at a wall of text mentioning random Sydney suburbs.
To that end, anywhere where you might have been a close contact of a confirmed case is marked red, meaning you should isolate for 14 days no matter what.
However places marked orange are venues where you might’ve been a casual contact, and need to isolate until you test negative.
The map also includes venues where you simply need to monitor your symptoms, as well as places where health alerts have since been rescinded.
When the advice changes, you can easily see a summary of what’s changed pic.twitter.com/SD68qoVMop
— ken tsang (@jxeeno) December 28, 2020
It’s also just an interesting way to visualise the data. Zoom in on, say, Avalon or Mona Vale and it’s clear just how serious the situation is on the Northern Beaches compare to the rest of Sydney.
Honestly, it’s about time we had an easy way to see this kind of info on a map.
Yes, the contact tracers are doing a great job, but receiving multiple walls of text every day is not the most ideal way to find out if you’re a potential close contact or not.
Just like when coders stepped up to help Melburnians navigate their strict lockdown, so too has Tsang helped better communicate exactly how serious things are in Sydney, and where.
You can check it out for yourself here.
