COVID-19: Oxford University develops govt response tracker

Islamabad: Oxford University has launched world first COVID-19 Government Response Tracker that aims to track and compare government responses to the coronavirus outbreak worldwide.

From Pakistan, three students has volunteered to provide collect worldwide data on the pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 82,000 people and has affected around 1,431,706 people around the world. These students include Zile Huma, Syed Shoaib Rizvi and Tanyah Hameed.

The coronavirus outbreak has forced governments to put in place policies to contain the spread of the disease among their population. This project will collect systematic information on which governments have taken which measures and when to help decision makers and citizens understand the robustness of governmental response in consistent way aiding efforts to fight the pandemic.

The Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) will systematically collect information on several common policy responses governments have taken, scores the stringency of such measures and segregate these scores into a common Stringency Index.

The OxCGRT collects publicly available information on 13 indicators of government response including school closures, public events cancellations and public information campaigns as well as fiscal and monetary measures emergency investment in healthcare, testing and contact tracing.

The information will continue to be updated throughout the crisis and is freely accessible. The data will be collected by a team of over one hundred Oxford University students and staff from every part of the world.

Under this project students are allocated different countries to search for government responses against 13 indicators in which 9 indicators relate to the policies whereas remaining are financial indicators.