Mapping COVID-19 in Context: Promoting a Proportionate Perspective on the Pandemic

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 took a firm grip on human life in the year 2020. The global spread of the virus and the impacts of the associated disease COVID-19 are being tracked by numerous institutions, experts, and lay people. Thematic maps are widely used to visualize the many available metrics, including case counts, hospitalization rates, and fatalities. Despite coordination efforts at different jurisdictional levels (including global), data collection is partially inconsistent, delayed, or unfocused, and maps may exacerbate the issues of the underlying data. Numerous published maps also conflict with established cartographic guidelines and include design choices that exaggerate the spread of the coronavirus and the threat of COVID-19. This article highlights some of these issues and illustrates alternative representations that keep the pandemic in proportion. The distinction between using maps for data exploration and answering specific questions is examined, and the challenges to mapping the pandemic are related to standards of professional ethics in the GIS field.