Bloomberg Enhances Mapping Tool to Track Covid-19 Impact

This article first appeared in Waters Technology on April 14, 2020.

The data giant is releasing regional features and functionality to more closely monitor the coronavirus across companies and sectors.

Bloomberg has developed a mapping tool to help track the outbreak of Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, and better understand companies’ exposures to the virus. The feature has been built on top of Bloomberg’s MAP GO solution, available on its flagship terminal.

MAP VIRUS was first launched on January 29, at which point there were more than 7,700 recorded cases of infection and more than 170 deaths reported in China alone. Since then, Bloomberg has released several iterations of its mapping tool, with the most recent rolled out on April 6, providing regional views of the outbreak in the US and mainland China.

The research platform is targeted at analysts to help them quantify the impact of the virus and derive insights that they can then pass on to portfolio managers or traders.

MAP VIRUS pulls in data from Johns Hopkins University, a global standard source on the coronavirus, which updates its information from government agencies such as the World Health Organization, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Health Council. Bloomberg’s tool also sources data from news organizations, MAP GO’s database, third-party providers, government websites, public company information, and newly created datasets specific to the virus, typically derived using crowdsourcing techniques like manually analyzing documents. Additionally, MAP VIRUS leverages Bloomberg’s global newsroom, taking in live feeds from news reports.

All the datasets are brought together on the platform and visualized using a world map, charting tools and tabular grids.

“Whether it’s at Bloomberg or other places, we’re able to bring in [and visualize] datasets that, in any other context outside of location, have no correlation to one another. But within the map you can see those correlations and those overlaps, and you can start to understand the situation or plan for a decision much better,” says Bobby Shackelton, head of geospatial applications at Bloomberg.

Shackelton joined the data company five years ago, leading the builds of MAP GO and the virus tracking tool.

On the platform, users can search for specific companies or groups of companies, pulling up information on their physical assets (such as factories, workforce, and supply chains), a curated list of coronavirus-related news mentioning that firm or industry, market performance and indexes data.

For example, an analyst could measure a company’s exposure by looking at the impact on its supply chain if a large proportion of its factories and workforce is located on mainland China, the source of the outbreak, and where economic and social lockdown was first implemented.

Users also have the option to filter the data by layering on alternative datasets like airline information or maritime movements. There is the capability to conduct time series analyses, as the tool includes the full history of the coronavirus outbreak. Analysts can click on a specific date in the time series to view the statistics from that day, which is then reflected in the map view.

“We’ve connected the map and chart to create a kind of an immersive experience where the map can drive the chart and the chart can drive the map. You can replay the chart and the map at the same time to animate the outbreak and the course of action,” Shackelton says.

Trouble Was Brewing

Plans for the Covid-19 tool emerged in early January, following a tip-off from some of Bloomberg’s data analysts in China. They suggested that the MAP GO team get ahead of the outbreak, as “things started to brew and become an issue in China”, Shackelton says. A week later, by mid-January, they had developed the first iteration of MAP VIRUS.

Since then, the team has built five or six versions of the tool based on client feedback. As the pandemic unfolded, users asked for additional functionality, including time series analysis, more data variables (for example, not only cases, but deaths, recoveries, net changes day over day), and daily analysis of how the market was reacting to updates on the virus.

Shackelton says the team is continually building out the solution to providemore granular data. The next versions aim to offer more country-specific data as the rates of infection spike and flatten in different regions, and especially as China begins to ease its lockdown measures and manufacturing restrictions.

“The approach is to become more granular and detailed as this [virus] continues to develop, because it’s going from a macro event to a more localized event every day,” he adds.

The first quarter of 2020 has seen the greatest recorded usage of MAP GO since its launch in 2016, with a 300% increase since the beginning of the outbreak.