I have been compiling a “SITSUM” for the Town of Windham Covid Unified Command team since almost the beginning of the pandemic. At times, the SITUSM was produced daily. Currently, it’s weekly. I draw data from many sources, and your dashboard has been very useful for calculating rolling average daily cases. These daily cases have been a key metric that the town manager has relied upon for decision making.

– Marc A. Scrivener: Willimantic Fire Chief

Over two  years ago, I am sure none of us fathomed the Corona Virus scenario as it unfolded. As GIS professionals, we are employed to use our technology, knowledge, and skills to answer questions, solve problems, and improve the world we live in regularly. When the Covid-19 pandemic developed further as a full blown public health concern, information- specifically geographic based information, became a regular part of the dialogue. In an unprecedented way, as everything else, GIS and web based GIS products grew in value and significance allowing every day citizens to verify conditions so as to make important health decisions. While the Johns Hopkins map provided a global view, it was the GIS dashboard from the Department of Geography at UConn that became the de facto authoritative resource at the local level for the State of Connecticut at all levels of government- State, regional, and local, as well as individual citizens. When I was putting together the Town of South Windsor Covid-19 Resource Hub, there was no question of if I would include it. It provided commonly understandable presentations of the critical data regarding infection rates, total cases, and changes from the previous day. I even consulted it regularly on a personal basis to make choices for my own family. As a municipal GIS employee, who wears multiple hats at any given time, there is never enough time in a day to accomplish everything I could hope to. Having this resource provided for me, with such a high degree of quality and accuracy, as well as a polished presentation was so incredibly welcome. It added significant value to the Town’s web site and helped the Town succeed in its mission to provide residents, business owners, and others with a useful and informational resource to help them successfully navigate this health crisis. It saved me time and effort in attempting to create something myself, that would not have been as effective or complete. Adam, and the entire team behind the Covid-19 dashboard deserve a multitude of kudos from each and every citizen in the State for assembling and maintaining such a fantastic resource in a time of great need. May this web application along with others go into the history books as one of the key pieces of conquering this horrible virus.

– Thad J. Dymkowski, GISP: GIS Analyst for the Town of South Windsor

As the regional planning agency for the Capitol Region we realized at the onset of the pandemic the need to provide Covid-19 related resources for our member municipalities. While we stood up several committees and working groups and delivered all kinds of information, we needed a data rich and streamlined online dashboard for critical Covid-19 statistics. The UConn Covid-19 dashboard provided (and still provides) this in an easy to understand web map. This tool has been invaluable as a spatial, statistical, and visual reference to support our Covid related initiatives.

                – Erik Snowden, IT/GIS Coordinator for the Capitol Region Council of Governments

When COVID first hit we as a GIS community used the John Hopkins COVID-19 dashboard, it provided a great visualization about the spread of COVID-19 worldwide. As the virus spread to the United States and reached Connecticut there was a huge need to view this data at the State level. The UConn Geography Department did an amazing job building a dashboard to visualize the spread of COVID-19 in Connecticut. Their application filled a huge need in the State to aggregate and visualize the data spatially. I referenced the dashboard many times in the past year in my personal and professional work. Thanks UConn Geography Department for all your hard work.

– Aaron Nash, GISP: GIS Project Manager for UConn Transportation Safety Research Center