New Haven residents can now use the app SeeClickFix to not only report a pothole, but issues with COVID-19 as the city nears its peak in cases.
“If it’s a local business for example, if it’s something they see at a park,” said New Haven’s Director of Public Health Maritza Bond.
The COVID-19 section within the app has sections for business compliance, social gatherings and general questions giving residents both a hotline and an app to get help. Bond says the app will help balance the workload between the health department’s emergency hotline and general questions.
“The health department’s responsibility is really to track and identify positive cases in our city, foster self-isolation and then conduct contact tracing,” said Bond. “(It) allows us to have different points of contact to address those concerns in a timely manner so that we can make sure we’re being responsive to our community.”
The city also launched a full multilingual COVID-19 website, with information for businesses, faith communities, nursing homes and more.
“We wanted to make sure we had a platform not only to share important information, but facts and data.”
Included in the city’s online hub is an interactive map showing statewide case details per city. It was created and is managed by UConn.
“Most of the information was at the county level,” said professor Debs Ghosh, Ph.D.
She and student Adam Gallaher built the map for the public to get a better picture of cases. Every day, Gallaher uploads the latest state data by hand, to keep the map current.
“I think it just makes interpreting the data a lot easier for those who may not be familiar with interpreting it, and also maybe those that may not be familiar with where to find this information,” said Gallaher.
He pointed to an interesting track on the map. He pointed out seeing the cases travel northward along the coast and curve along 91 toward Hartford and into Massachusetts.
“And then that spread out from there horizontally is quite interesting,” said Gallaher.
Bond says the site and the map will help people make informed decisions about their health as New Haven nears the peak, especially with the CDC’s latest recommendations for everyone to wear a mask.
“It’s really important that people don’t leave their homes without proper covering,” said Bond.
She adds that soon New Haven data will go even deeper, showing recovery rates and impacts of different age, race and gender groups.
