Viz Responsibly: Demystifying COVID-19 Models

The COVID-19 models and associated visualizations have been held up as our roadmap to re-opening, by some policymakers. But do decision makers understand the nuances of those models? Transparency around limitations and methods vary widely though, and we now have amateur data scientists around the world trying to make sense of this information. The available models have also shown just how challenging it can be to make accurate forecasts based on fundamentally uncertain and incomplete data, with predictions varying widely depending on the methods used. Galois, an employee-owned research lab in Arlington, VA, has developed an open source platform to support peer review and exploration of existing COVID-19 models. build tools to build on these efforts and help people to establish things like model credibility and identify possible mistakes.