After analyzing multiple COVID related datasets in public domain shared on Kaggle.com, GitHub.com and other sources, I decided to use dataset from Blavatnik School of Governance, a part of Oxford University, which captured govt policies, actions and interventions in battling COVID pandemic. The Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) systematically collects information on several different common policy responses that governments have taken to respond to the pandemic on 17 key indicators such as school/work closures and travel restrictions.

The goal of my data visualizations were :

• Categorize the various Govt actions in to domains like healthcare, education, workplaces etc.
• Plot the actions and the stringency index against Covid data like number of cases and fatalities, as well as time axis.
• Compare the actions, timelines of 2 countries side by side

The biggest challenge was to come up with a composition that could show 3 dimensions : Time, Covid cases and Govt actions . I took it to my iPad and started sketching out visualizations. Below images are a few of the designs that I went through before finalizing on the winner.

The basic rules of visual design for charts that I follow :

• High contrast colors
• Information hierarchy that shows overall view and drill down to see granular data
• Simple shapes that are relatable, easy to identify and recollect
• Must fit in to viewport

I tried to adhere to these rules while designing the visuals. I went with a dark color pallete for good visibility. Some of the data details were put behind interactive components like modals or sliding panes.

This interactive visualization maps the responses, actions, initiatives of countries to the progression of COVID19. You can view the timeline of actions taken by any govt for fighting Covid in their respective countries.

This visualization attempts to provide following insights :

• What were the actions taken by govts across the world to tackle Covid and when.
• How stringent were the policy measures compared to rest of the countries

This visualization pits 2 countries against each other on the velocity of actions taken by them to combat covid. You can select two countries to compare the actions they have taken towards managing COVID against a scale of number of positive cases and in different governance categories.

This visualization attempts to provide following insights :

• Which of these 2 countries was more proactive in implementing measures to combat Covid
• What were the combat measures in different governance categories
• What was the number of cases when a particular measure was implemented in a country

This one uses Google's Covid Mobility data and the Oxford Universitiy's COVID govt actions tracker to show how public mobility has been affected with the actions and measures taken by governments.

This visualization provides insight about:

• How effective were the lockdown measures
• Which social activities and businessess were most impacted due to lockdowns and when