Gov. Newsom Unveils New Tool For Tracking COVID-19

SACRAMENTO – On June 25, Gov. Gavin Newsom revealed CalCAT, a new online tool for tracking COVID-19 in the state of California.

The  tools, technology, and data will allow scientists, researchers, technologists, and all Californians to better understand the impact of COVID-19. This includes the California COVID Assessment Tool, or CalCAT, a “model of models” that contains assessments of the spread of COVID-19, short-term forecasts of disease trends, and scenarios of the course of the disease from modeling groups across the country. The state is also making the source code of CalCAT available to the public. Additionally, the Governor has directed that the state’s COVID-19 data be open and machine-readable by default, except to preserve privacy; that data be provided via dashboard, on California’s open data portal; and that the data be available by direct connection to a database.

The goal is to refine California’s and LA County’s insights and knowledge, and to spur collaboration with other states and researchers. 

The Governor’s Office is instructing all state agencies and departments to make COVID-19 data and information publicly accessible, provided it does not include information that will violate privacy.

CalCAT includes:

           “Nowcasts,” the rate at which COVID-19 is estimated to be spreading;

Short-term forecasts, which show what various models predict will happen over the next few weeks in California; and

Scenarios, which show what could happen over the next few months under different conditions. 

Details:To learn more about the California COVID Assessment Tool, visit calcat.covid19.ca.gov. 

To access the open-source code, go to https://github.com/StateOfCalifornia/CalCAT.To learn more information about California’s efforts around COVID-19, go to covid19.ca.gov.