Webinar — Texas and the COVID Tracking Project: Lessons Learned and Future Steps

The COVID Tracking Project is a volunteer organization that was launched from The Atlantic magazine on March 7, 2020 to collect and publish data on the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. The website has served as an essential source of data on testing, hospitalizations and deaths for reporters, public health experts and the general public.

Judith Oppenheim, a retired chemical engineer and longtime Texas resident, served as the Texas COVID-19 data specialist for the project. In a webinar moderated by Vivian Ho, the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics, Oppenheim took a deep dive into the data to explore the effects of the pandemic on different parts of Texas. Watch the recording below to learn which regions of Texas fared the worst and when, how local surges influenced death rates and which counties had the highest number of hospitalizations. Oppenheim and Ho also discussed recommendations to improve infectious disease reporting in Texas and how more accurate data could have eased the impact of the pandemic in Texas.

This webinar was sponsored by the Baker Institute Center for Health and Biosciences. Follow @BakerCHB on Twitter, and join the conversation online with #BakerHealth.