


Some of these dashboards and applications are receiving data updates in near-real-time (at the time of writing), and one of them is meant for individual users (in China) to check if the app user has had any close contact with a person confirmed or suspected to have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the recent past. This paper offers pointers to, and describes, a range of practical online/mobile GIS and mapping dashboards and applications for tracking the 2019/2020 coronavirus epidemic and associated events as they unfold around the world. As with the original SARS-CoV epidemic of 2002/2003 and with seasonal influenza, geographic information systems and methods, including, among other application possibilities, online real-or near-real-time mapping of disease cases and of social media reactions to disease spread, predictive risk mapping using population travel data, and tracing and mapping super-spreader trajectories and contacts across space and time, are proving indispensable for timely and effective epidemic monitoring and response. In December 2019, a new virus (initially called ‘Novel Coronavirus 2019-nCoV’ and later renamed to SARS-CoV-2) causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (coronavirus disease COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, and rapidly spread to other parts of China and other countries around the world, despite China’s massive efforts to contain the disease within Hubei.
