Friday marked the DRAMATIC DEBUT of what @carriecochran, @MarenMachles and I spent my last two weeks on: 50 state analysis tracking different COVID-19 policies day by day: https://www.newsy.com/stories/covid-19-watch-patchwork-response-to-coronavirus-outbreak-not-enough/

As Dr. @BDLushniak put it, “we're in essence functioning almost as 50 separate nations,” in our policy response to COVID-19 and that’s lost us valuable time in slowing the spread of a pandemic

You can see our separate actions as separate nations in a timeline visualization put together by Newsy’s bang-up graphics team @connorhickox and Andrew Lawler

There are a bunch of weird things in here: Many places still aren’t under stay-at-home orders! States like CA didn’t actually close all schools on the state level, all of the districts did it on their own! Hawaii declared a State of Emergency before the first confirmed case!

Also people in states like KY are banned from non-essential out-of-state travel -- partially to protect against the surrounding states having slower/weaker responses

This is a screenshot of those beautiful graphics' hideous backend post-factcheck -- epileptics and aesthetes avert your gaze

Big props to my co-producers/reporters @carriecochran and @MarenMachles without whom I would never have been able to pull off a manual data collection and analysis project of this magnitude and lived to turn a story out of it.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this is the most hubristic data project I’ve ever actually completed.

The idea behind collecting this data in the first place was primarily as a reporting tool: to be able to look back on the effects of these policies nationally! And to compare different approaches and unintended consequences and the like *tents fingers*

Which is all to say look out for more of that from us under the title: COVID-19 WATCH -- we are operating with a FULL DECK here at @Newsy (except that it’s hard to keep myself from having ideas that require more data collection)

We are operating with a FULL AND INFINITELY EXPANDING DECK

Also it is absolutely amazing what my coworkers are capable of, even while working from home under crisis conditions and across great distances.