Stories of Loss

Several years ago, Esri started a “Celebrating Lost Loved Ones” application to pay tribute to those lost to the opioid epidemic. Now, as countless lives are being lost to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the idea of building a similar platform to memorialize  COVID-19 losses was suggested, and the Coronavirus Lost Loved Ones app was born. It is easy to see the news and be overwhelmed by the numbers, while forgetting these numbers represent real lives that were loved by their friends and family.

Four GISCorps volunteers were selected for this project and became responsible for validating all submissions. They were: Krista McPherson (California), Jenny Cheng (Washington), Songmei Li (Illinois), and Amy Kaple (Colorado). Esri was instrumental in building the Survey123 submission forms, the Attachment viewers, and the Hub page.

In July 2021, the Lost Loved Ones app was absorbed into the In America: Remember project, and a new version of the map was created.

Recovery Stories

At a time of such great loss, there is also hope, as over a million diagnosed cases have recovered from the virus. So in a similar vein, a platform to share stories of recovery was created. Browse the Recovery Stories map here.

Vaccination Stories

In January 2021, an additional map was added to the project and the Hub site: I Got Vaccinated! The purpose of this map was to provide a space where people could share their COVID-19 vaccination experiences, thereby helping to encourage other people to get vaccinated as well. Six volunteers, Jenny Cheng, Songmei Li, Amy Kaple, Charles Feng, German Whitley, and Shoreh Elhami, offered to support this effort by validating public submissions to the map. Songmei Li also volunteered to build a dashboard to track submissions to the “I Got Vaccinated” map; that dashboard appears on the Hub site as well.

Coronavirus Stories Hub Site

In order to see more details about these projects, please visit this “Coronavirus Stories of Loss, Recovery, and Vaccination” Hub page.

Projects Completed.