People living in some of the largest U.S. cities and their surrounding areas face the highest risk of contracting COVID-19 in the near future, according to a new set of online dashboards created by researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.
The risk analysis model used by the website examines more than 3,000 U.S. counties and features three dashboards that focus on aspects of community resilience: risk, exposure and vulnerability. Counties are scored on 13 different variables across the three dashboards, accounting for socioeconomic circumstances, population density, transportation infrastructure and other important metrics for measuring the pandemic, such as available intensive care unit beds and the average number of new cases.
The researchers said the new model presents the most comprehensive look yet at the virus’s current and future spread across the U.S.