为何美国疫情数据由约翰斯·霍普金斯大学发布，而不是政府？

随着新冠肺炎疫情的蔓延，你可能会在新闻中看到很多消息来源于“约翰斯·霍普金斯大学(Johns Hopkins University)”的疫情地图。自1月22日推出以来，该可视化地图报告了中国各省级病例情况以及美国、澳大利亚、加拿大等国的疫情情况。

该大学发布了全球疫情可视化地图，实时可视化跟踪各国疫情的动态数据，包括地点，确诊人数，死亡和治愈人数等。

这个疫情可视化地图由两名约翰斯·霍普金斯大学系统科学与工程中心一年级的中国博士生董恩盛、杜鸿儒开发，并登上了世界顶尖医学期刊《柳叶刀》。

随着全球范围内疫情的爆发，大多数国家每天报告新确诊病例和确诊病例总数，数据通常由政府部门组织发布。但是，美国是个例外，目前报道美国疫情的媒体主要有包括美联社(Associated Press)、国会山(The Hill)和哥伦比亚广播公司(CBS）等在内的国际媒体和美国当地新闻机构，他们也常常引用来自约翰斯·霍普金斯大学的动态实时数据。

As the coronavirus pandemic unfolds, you might be hearing a lot about "Johns Hopkins University" in the news. The university built an interactive dashboard to visualize and track global data on COVID-19 in real-time.

As COVID-19 pandemic is developing around the world, most of the countries report data of new and total confirmed cases on a daily basis, and data is often organized and released by government departments.

The U.S. is an exception. When reporting about the outbreak in the U.S., international media and American local news agencies, including The Associated Press, The Hill, and CBS, often refer to real-time data from Johns Hopkins University's dashboard.

Launched on January 22, the dashboard reports cases at the province level in China, at the city level in the U.S, Australia, and Canada, and at the country level for other situations. 

为什么此实时统计数据和可视化功能能受到青睐？

因为此可视化地图的数据来源很权威。数据从世界卫生组织、美国疾病预防控制中心、欧洲疾病预防控中心、中国卫健委、当地新闻报道和卫生部门、丁香园等方面获取，采用半自动化的实时数据流策略。两位博士与同学校计算机系的同学合作，开发运用机器学习、自然语言处理等技术，在网上搜索相关信息。与此同时，为了确保数据准确性，开发者还会进行人工比对核实和手动更新。

约翰斯·霍普金斯大学表示，通过人工和自动更新相结合的方式，该地图全天几乎都是实时维护的。

上线以来，该网站的全球日访问量从一月底的2亿次上升到三月初的12亿次，甚至到达过20亿次。来自世界各地的网民不断涌入。

Why is Johns Hopkins' dashboard data reliable?

According to the university, the dashboard uses data from government bodies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  (U.S. CDC), the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and the National Health Commission of China, and other organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), local media reports, and the DXY, one of the world's largest online communities for physicians, health care professionals, pharmacies, and health facilities.

The map is maintained in near real time throughout the day through a combination of manual and automated updating, said the university.

Data of total confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. from WHO, ECDC and Johns Hopkins University were nearly identical in the early stage of the pandemic, according to Our World in Data.

From March 10, data from Johns Hopkins have shown significantly higher numbers than other sources, probably, because the university also includes estimates of presumptive positive cases.

Presumptive positive cases are those that have been confirmed by state or local labs but not by national labs, Our World in Data wrote.

The U.S. CDC said on its website earlier this month that if there is a discrepancy between the number of cases reported by the CDC, and state and local public health officials, the state-reported data should be considered up to date, which means Johns Hopkins' data is more timely.

In an article titled "The most reliable coronavirus dashboards" on Digital Trends, the dashboard of Johns Hopkins University is also identified as "updated the most often."

Behind the dashboard

The entire concept and visualization of the dashboard were prepared by a civil and systems engineering professor, Lauren Gardner, and two Chinese students, Dong Ensheng and Du Hongru – both first-year Ph.D. students at the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Dong told a local Chinese media outlet that on March 12, the dashboard got two billion hits from the entire world in a single day. They also co-authored a short piece explaining the dashboard, which was published on the world-leading medical journal The Lancet on February 19.

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