An online dashboard designed to track and map the new coronavirus in real time has become an instant hit as Koreans are glued to the news in the developments in the new deadly pandemic.

“We found it hard to collect and check distributed data on the virus, scattered over various departments and organizations, which is why we created our own online dashboard for the epidemic,” said Kwon Yeong-jae, 34, and Joo Eun-jin, 29, developers of the web page (wuhanvirus.kr), in an e-mail interview with Maeil Business Newspaper. “We hope our website is helpful to prevent the spread of the virus.”

The web page built by the couple offers real-time updates about the global and national spread of the coronavirus – ranging from confirmed cases, number of deaths and recoveries to detailed information such as the travel route of the confirmed, transmission route, date of diagnosis, number of contacts and isolation facilities.

Domestic data collected from Korea’s central committee in charge of disease control and related centers are reprocessed for easier viewing.

For daily live updates, Joo focuses on data processing around the clock and Kwon spends his out-of-office hours updating the page.

“Press releases from credible sources are collected automatically, but we do check the contents and update them manually,” they said, adding that “It takes time but we’re proudly doing the job for public benefits.”

The wuhanvirus.kr now is visited by around 700,000 per day and its cumulative visits have already hit 3 million in less than a week since the opening, according to them. Kwon and Joo launched the site after three-days of development on Jan. 29. Operating cost is covered with ads for antiviral products on the page.

By Kim Geum-yi and Lee Ha-yeon

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]