Closed joachim-gassen closed 4 years ago
Hi Joachim, great to hear from you!
Some quick responses to your points:
Cheers! -Toby
Hi Toby, thank you for coming back so quickly and great to hear that you will be including the notes going forward. About your other points:
- this is a tougher one – zeros are intended to be a deliberate statement that there is no policy worthy of coding as a 1 or higher. But we don't require our data collectors to provide references to prove there is not a policy every time they code a 0. Indeed, our intention is that our data collectors only record a note when a policy changes, rather than every single day (as you refer to the 'stale' notes in your blog post), but this doesn't always happen.
For my analysis, I first excluded all daily observations where the measures are unchanged. So, I only count the zeros that reflect policy changes or initiations of the data. For these zeros you have only notes on file for 7% of the cases meaning that the vast majority of zeros are not backed by evidence. This seems also closely related to the next point.
- we started recording data in the country-day format to make it as instantly usable as possible – for econometric analysis and for simple timeseries display for researchers and journalists. As you say, if we stored data at the level of country-response, we could still transform it into whatever format we wanted for output. We are thinking about ways around this; but again, it is not a very high priority compared to other system fixes we are looking at on the back-end. Could you describe more about the headaches it is causing? At the moment we see it is an inconvenience but not a serious problem – but happy to hear otherwise.
I think this issue has two aspects: A theoretical and a practical one.
Let me start with the theory: Data collection requires a clear understanding what a data point is. A data point needs to be factual and supported by evidence. A governmental intervention/response provides such a data point. It is observable, you can provide a reference. Another person can re-assess its existence.
Now let's assume that you want country-day levels of governmental responses as data points. A data collector facing this task would most likely start searching for governmental responses on various sources. Then, assuming that they do not find any evidence for a governmental response they will code the respective day as zero. But what is the evidence for this data point? "Tried real hard to find something but did not find anything"?
Conceptually, the country-day level assessment of government responses is an interpretation of the underlying data (governmental responses). The analyst evaluates the data (country-level responses that are still current for a given day) and produces an output (the overall measure for a given day). This can be done algorithmically, e.g., by simply adding up scores, or by more complex assessments but the underlying data remain the single documented responses.
Now to why all this matters from a practical standpoint: First, you want to make sure that you can efficiently collect data on changes in governmental interventions. As we are all hoping that all these governmental responses are temporary, and we are already seeing some of them being lifted, this is super important. When you code your data at the response level, this is easy to do. You can give each response a termination date. When a response is modified, you can terminate it and generate a new one.
If however, you code your data as country-day, this becomes impossible. Let's assume that a country has established three different types of social distancing measures and is lifting one of them. How would you reflect this in your data? You can reduce the overall measure for social distancing which lumps together all responses and add a note to explain what you did but these notes are not easily processable. And from the overall measure alone nobody will be able to assess which response was terminated. You are destroying information with this coding scheme.
Another, but less important, practical aspect that is already apparent in your data is that is much harder to verify information in the country-day structure. Let's assume that you want to impose basic data quality checks on your data. A straight-forward check would be to demand that every response change needs to supported by a note. To test this in a country-response data structure you simply impose that the note field cannot be missing and maybe test for basic robustness of the note content. In the country-day setting you would first have to limit your sample to the observations that actual change compared to the day before and then do the check.
This sounds as if it is a minor technical issue but it is not since there might be cases where an analyst decides that, while there is a change in the governmental response on a given day, this change is not substantial enough to warrant a change in the measure. They will add a note but not change the measure. How do you verify that this happens whenever there is a response change observed? For me, as an intermediary user of your data, this causes the issue that I do not know when to discard notes on not change days. Most notes on non-change days are "sticky stales" (unfortunately in several cases with white space differences or similar, making them technically different) and thus can be discarded but in some observations, notes on no-measure change days are actually indicative of some relevant governmental activities.
The good news is that you can still relatively easily change the format of your data. The code in my post above contains some pointers on how to do that. But my guess is that you need to take this decision relatively quickly as more and more governmental responses are being changed and/or lifted, raising the problem outlined above that you conceptually cannot address this in your existing data structure.
Sorry. This got much longer than I initially planed. Am I making sense to you?
Joachim
Hi Joachim,
Sorry for taking a while to pick this back up. We just did a marathon restructure of our database over the last couple of weeks.
The points you are making do make sense. We are still going with a country-day format, but I think our changes may have addressed some of your concerns. For instance, we have removed all redundant/stale notes, and put in place many more server-side validation and processing rules to make it a neater data set.
The issue about zeroes not being supported by notes is more worrying. I haven't had the time to look very closely at this one myself, but I wonder, if you exclude the initial state (eg periods of zero that start at 1 Jan) and if you exclude the columns of "sX_is_general" flags (now titled "c/e/hX_flag" in the new scheme) which do not have their own notes, is this still a problem?
-Toby
Hi Joachim,
Would you mind checking out data/OxCGRT_latest_allchanges.csvand telling me what you think?
At the moment it includes any change in the database, including if the policy value stays the same and only a new note is added on a later day. We are also working to produce a version that will only include a row when a policy value changes.
-Toby
Hi there,
sorry for the silence and thank you for pointing me to the new data format. I had a quick look. In principle, I like the data organisation much better (big surprise)!
However, I am not sure how exactly you define a 'change' as there are 43 observations in that file that are identical to directly prior ones, besides the Date
variable. It could be that these are generated by the notes being different in your local encoding but this difference being lost when you are exporting to CSV but this is just a guess.
In any case it shows how hard it is to identify an actual "event" in your data if you do not discard the notes.
Any ideas what is causing these duplicates and how to interpret them going forward?
Joachim
Below is the code that I used and the duplicates for your reference
library(dplyr)
library(readr)
df_raw <- read_csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OxCGRT/covid-policy-tracker/master/data/OxCGRT_latest_allchanges.csv")
df_sorted <- df_raw %>%
arrange(CountryCode, PolicyType, Date) %>%
group_by(CountryCode, PolicyType) %>%
mutate(
dup_obs = row_number() > 1 &
PolicyValue == lag(PolicyValue) &
Flag == lag(Flag) &
Notes == lag(Notes)
)
which(df_sorted$dup_obs)
[1] 30 166 220 265 353 367 681 789 901 905 906 1092 1308 1310 1312 1317 1725
[18] 1819 1838 1854 1949 2029 2211 2237 2252 2288 2330 2417 2483 2971 2972 2986 3466 3778
[35] 4151 5040 5063 5242 5428 5613 5762 5983 6166
CountryName | CountryCode | Date | PolicyType | PolicyValue | Flag | Notes | dup\_obs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Afghanistan | AFG | 20200314 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
On March 14, 2020, the Afghan government announced closure of schools
for a month. Academic year in most of the country beings on March 21st.
As of now, the schools will not start the new academic year until April
21, 2020:
|
FALSE |
Afghanistan | AFG | 20200315 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
On March 14, 2020, the Afghan government announced closure of schools
for a month. Academic year in most of the country beings on March 21st.
As of now, the schools will not start the new academic year until April
21, 2020:
|
TRUE |
United Arab Emirates | ARE | 20200329 | C3: Cancel public events | 2 | 1 |
The National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority and the
General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments have decided to
temporarily suspend prayers in all places of worship across the nation,
effective today at 9 p.m. local time on the 16th of March, for a period
of four weeks out of concern for public safety.
|
FALSE |
United Arab Emirates | ARE | 20200410 | C3: Cancel public events | 2 | 1 |
The National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority and the
General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments have decided to
temporarily suspend prayers in all places of worship across the nation,
effective today at 9 p.m. local time on the 16th of March, for a period
of four weeks out of concern for public safety.
|
TRUE |
Argentina | ARG | 20200319 | C6: Stay at home requirements | 3 | 1 |
Measures were put in place 19/03, renewed 31/03 until 12/04 and renewed
11/04 until 26/04.
|
FALSE |
Argentina | ARG | 20200418 | C6: Stay at home requirements | 3 | 1 |
Measures were put in place 19/03, renewed 31/03 until 12/04 and renewed
11/04 until 26/04.
|
TRUE |
Australia | AUS | 20200403 | C1: School closing | 3 | 0 |
The Federal Education Minister of Australia has requested independent
schools to reopen for term two. See the press report published on April
3:
|
FALSE |
Australia | AUS | 20200408 | C1: School closing | 3 | 0 |
The Federal Education Minister of Australia has requested independent
schools to reopen for term two. See the press report published on April
3:
|
TRUE |
Austria | AUT | 20200423 | C7: Restrictions on internal movement | 1 | 1 |
Tyrolean authorities lift remaining lockdown in Paznaun, St. Anton and
Sölden; no region of Austria under enforced cross-region lockdown,
though government still recommends limiting movement;
|
FALSE |
Austria | AUT | 20200426 | C7: Restrictions on internal movement | 1 | 1 |
Tyrolean authorities lift remaining lockdown in Paznaun, St. Anton and
Sölden; no region of Austria under enforced cross-region lockdown,
though government still recommends limiting movement;
|
TRUE |
Austria | AUT | 20200403 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
|
FALSE |
Austria | AUT | 20200418 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
|
TRUE |
Belize | BLZ | 20200320 | C4: Restrictions on gatherings | 3 | 1 |
“Social gatherings will now be limited to 25 people. This includes
wakes, funerals, weddings, and other social events.”
|
FALSE |
Belize | BLZ | 20200418 | C4: Restrictions on gatherings | 3 | 1 |
“Social gatherings will now be limited to 25 people. This includes
wakes, funerals, weddings, and other social events.”
|
TRUE |
Brazil | BRA | 20200423 | C1: School closing | 3 | 0 |
|
FALSE |
Brazil | BRA | 20200426 | C1: School closing | 3 | 0 |
|
TRUE |
Barbados | BRB | 20200401 | E1: Income support | 1 | 0 |
Laid off workers to receive benefits for 6 months and those on short
weeks to receive 60% for the days they are not working; government,
through the welfare department, to provide minimum income of an amount
up to USD300 per month to households where no person is left employed as
a result of COVID-19. See:
|
FALSE |
Barbados | BRB | 20200507 | E1: Income support | 1 | 0 |
Laid off workers to receive benefits for 6 months and those on short
weeks to receive 60% for the days they are not working; government,
through the welfare department, to provide minimum income of an amount
up to USD300 per month to households where no person is left employed as
a result of COVID-19. See:
|
TRUE |
Barbados | BRB | 20200403 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Barbados has established a COVID-19 information hotline that can be
reached at 246-536-4500. Source:
|
FALSE |
Barbados | BRB | 20200419 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Barbados has established a COVID-19 information hotline that can be
reached at 246-536-4500. Source:
|
TRUE |
Barbados | BRB | 20200504 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Barbados has established a COVID-19 information hotline that can be
reached at 246-536-4500. Source:
|
TRUE |
Chile | CHL | 20200314 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Ministry of health announces COVID response has moved to Phase three,
asks all citizens to take self-care measures, quarantines to be
respected, handshakes, kisses and the most efficient measure, which is
frequent hand washing, to be avoided. Launches government website;
|
FALSE |
Chile | CHL | 20200427 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Ministry of health announces COVID response has moved to Phase three,
asks all citizens to take self-care measures, quarantines to be
respected, handshakes, kisses and the most efficient measure, which is
frequent hand washing, to be avoided. Launches government website;
|
TRUE |
Congo | COG | 20200328 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
Places of worship, schools, higher education institutions, bars and
nightclubs are closed.
|
FALSE |
Congo | COG | 20200330 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
Places of worship, schools, higher education institutions, bars and
nightclubs are closed.
|
TRUE |
Congo | COG | 20200328 | C2: Workplace closing | 3 | 1 |
There is only an exception for workers providing essential goods and
services.
|
FALSE |
Congo | COG | 20200330 | C2: Workplace closing | 3 | 1 |
There is only an exception for workers providing essential goods and
services.
|
TRUE |
Congo | COG | 20200328 | C3: Cancel public events | 2 | 1 |
Places of worship, schools, higher education institutions, bars and
nightclubs are closed. Gatherings of more than 50 people as well as of
family events such as weddings and funerals are prohibited.
|
FALSE |
Congo | COG | 20200330 | C3: Cancel public events | 2 | 1 |
Places of worship, schools, higher education institutions, bars and
nightclubs are closed. Gatherings of more than 50 people as well as of
family events such as weddings and funerals are prohibited.
|
TRUE |
Congo | COG | 20200328 | C6: Stay at home requirements | 3 | 1 |
Lockdown measures include prohibiting people from leaving home and a
nationwide curfew from 8 pm until 5 am.
|
FALSE |
Congo | COG | 20200330 | C6: Stay at home requirements | 3 | 1 |
Lockdown measures include prohibiting people from leaving home and a
nationwide curfew from 8 pm until 5 am.
|
TRUE |
Denmark | DNK | 20200311 | C2: Workplace closing | 1 | 1 |
Recommendation on March 11 that all employees in non-critical functions
should be sent home to work from home. Sending home all non-essential
public sector employees occurs on 13th March, schools close on 16th
March. They should work from home if possible, but if not should be
given paid leave. However employees in the health sector, the elderly
care sector and the police have to stay at their posts.
|
FALSE |
Denmark | DNK | 20200313 | C2: Workplace closing | 1 | 1 |
Recommendation on March 11 that all employees in non-critical functions
should be sent home to work from home. Sending home all non-essential
public sector employees occurs on 13th March, schools close on 16th
March. They should work from home if possible, but if not should be
given paid leave. However employees in the health sector, the elderly
care sector and the police have to stay at their posts.
|
TRUE |
Ecuador | ECU | 20200416 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
|
FALSE |
Ecuador | ECU | 20200424 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
|
TRUE |
Ecuador | ECU | 20200410 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Official website up to date on all COVID-19 related information. Source:
|
FALSE |
Ecuador | ECU | 20200416 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Official website up to date on all COVID-19 related information. Source:
|
TRUE |
Egypt | EGY | 20200401 | C5: Close public transport | 2 | 1 | The Egyptian government has announced the suspension of public transport across the country for two weeks starting from the 25th of March 2020. Source: Al Jazeera Arabic | FALSE |
Egypt | EGY | 20200406 | C5: Close public transport | 2 | 1 | The Egyptian government has announced the suspension of public transport across the country for two weeks starting from the 25th of March 2020. Source: Al Jazeera Arabic | TRUE |
Estonia | EST | 20200327 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Government of Estonia has a dedicated website, FAQ sheets, call centre,
informational material and an A.I bot answering questions on COVID.
There are coordinated communication materials and FAQs from all sectors
available online / news media.
|
FALSE |
Estonia | EST | 20200427 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Government of Estonia has a dedicated website, FAQ sheets, call centre,
informational material and an A.I bot answering questions on COVID.
There are coordinated communication materials and FAQs from all sectors
available online / news media.
|
TRUE |
France | FRA | 20200317 | C2: Workplace closing | 3 | 1 |
|
FALSE |
France | FRA | 20200319 | C2: Workplace closing | 3 | 1 |
|
TRUE |
Greece | GRC | 20200410 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
ATHENS - According to an informal briefing by the Ministry of Education,
the temporary ban of the operation of all educational institutions, such
as schools, universities and others, will be extended until May 10,
2020.
|
FALSE |
Greece | GRC | 20200504 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
ATHENS - According to an informal briefing by the Ministry of Education,
the temporary ban of the operation of all educational institutions, such
as schools, universities and others, will be extended until May 10,
2020.
|
TRUE |
Greece | GRC | 20200504 | C7: Restrictions on internal movement | 2 | 0 |
In order for the first phase of easing the restrictive measures to have
the expected results, the Government decided to limit the movement of
citizens within the limits of the relevant Regional Unit. In the case of
Attica, the traffic restriction is done within the limits of the Region.
For the whole country, travel to the islands located in the same Region
is excluded. The restriction is valid for the period from 4.5.2020 to
18.5.2020. JMC No. ?1a / G?.???. 27818, Government Gazette ??1648 /
03.05.2020
|
FALSE |
Greece | GRC | 20200511 | C7: Restrictions on internal movement | 2 | 0 |
In order for the first phase of easing the restrictive measures to have
the expected results, the Government decided to limit the movement of
citizens within the limits of the relevant Regional Unit. In the case of
Attica, the traffic restriction is done within the limits of the Region.
For the whole country, travel to the islands located in the same Region
is excluded. The restriction is valid for the period from 4.5.2020 to
18.5.2020. JMC No. ?1a / G?.???. 27818, Government Gazette ??1648 /
03.05.2020
|
TRUE |
Greece | GRC | 20200301 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
“Greece’s Health Ministry is stepping up a public information plan about
how people can protect themselves from the coronavirus, with seven cases
in the country and the European Union raising its alert level to high
for the disease, now called Covid-19. The Health Ministry is putting
messages on TV and social media aimed at ensuring that people observe
basic hygiene rules, especially washing hands regularly and the right
way, to ward off spreading or contracting the disease.”
|
FALSE |
Greece | GRC | 20200505 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
“Greece’s Health Ministry is stepping up a public information plan about
how people can protect themselves from the coronavirus, with seven cases
in the country and the European Union raising its alert level to high
for the disease, now called Covid-19. The Health Ministry is putting
messages on TV and social media aimed at ensuring that people observe
basic hygiene rules, especially washing hands regularly and the right
way, to ward off spreading or contracting the disease.”
|
TRUE |
Guatemala | GTM | 20200413 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
Measures were renewed on 13/04. For schools, until 30/04 (see article
7).
|
FALSE |
Guatemala | GTM | 20200418 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
Measures were renewed on 13/04. For schools, until 30/04 (see article
7).
|
TRUE |
Guatemala | GTM | 20200413 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Measures were renewed on 13/04 (see article 15).
|
NA |
Guatemala | GTM | 20200420 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Measures were renewed on 13/04 (see article 15).
|
TRUE |
Hong Kong | HKG | 20200126 | C3: Cancel public events | 2 | 1 |
The HKSAR Government will cancel large-scale events in the coming future
which it organises or arranges and are expected to be attended by many
people. Apart from the International Chinese New Year Carnival and the
Lunar New Year Cup football tournament which have been cancelled
earlier, lantern carnivals organised by the Leisure and Cultural
Services Department will also be cancelled. The HKSAR Government has
reached a consensus with the organiser of the Hong Kong Marathon that
the event originally scheduled for February 9 will also be cancelled. In
addition, as the HKSAR Government has to focus on fighting the disease,
various types of Chinese New Year receptions hosted by the HKSAR
Government, including the one hosted by the Chief Executive in the
Government House, will be cancelled.. Source:
|
FALSE |
Hong Kong | HKG | 20200127 | C3: Cancel public events | 2 | 1 |
The HKSAR Government will cancel large-scale events in the coming future
which it organises or arranges and are expected to be attended by many
people. Apart from the International Chinese New Year Carnival and the
Lunar New Year Cup football tournament which have been cancelled
earlier, lantern carnivals organised by the Leisure and Cultural
Services Department will also be cancelled. The HKSAR Government has
reached a consensus with the organiser of the Hong Kong Marathon that
the event originally scheduled for February 9 will also be cancelled. In
addition, as the HKSAR Government has to focus on fighting the disease,
various types of Chinese New Year receptions hosted by the HKSAR
Government, including the one hosted by the Chief Executive in the
Government House, will be cancelled.. Source:
|
TRUE |
Honduras | HND | 20200316 | C6: Stay at home requirements | 3 | 1 |
General curfew ordered. There is a schedule for individuals to be
outside their homes based on the number of national ID card. This
schedule is not the same for the provinces of the provinces of Cortés,
Colón and a city in Yoro. Orders of curfew are listed below from most
recent (26/04) to oldest starting from the 16/03 extension:
|
FALSE |
Honduras | HND | 20200418 | C6: Stay at home requirements | 3 | 1 |
General curfew ordered. There is a schedule for individuals to be
outside their homes based on the number of national ID card. This
schedule is not the same for the provinces of the provinces of Cortés,
Colón and a city in Yoro. Orders of curfew are listed below from most
recent (26/04) to oldest starting from the 16/03 extension:
|
TRUE |
Italy | ITA | 20200312 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
|
FALSE |
Italy | ITA | 20200314 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
|
TRUE |
Italy | ITA | 20200317 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
|
TRUE |
Jamaica | JAM | 20200323 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
Source:
|
FALSE |
Jamaica | JAM | 20200426 | C1: School closing | 3 | 1 |
Source:
|
TRUE |
Libya | LBY | 20200322 | C7: Restrictions on internal movement | 2 | 1 |
15/03/2020 - The education ministries of the Tripoli-based unity
government and its eastern-based rival announced in separate statements
that all the country’s schools, both public and private, will be closed
from Sunday.
|
FALSE |
Libya | LBY | 20200416 | C7: Restrictions on internal movement | 2 | 1 |
15/03/2020 - The education ministries of the Tripoli-based unity
government and its eastern-based rival announced in separate statements
that all the country’s schools, both public and private, will be closed
from Sunday.
|
TRUE |
Mexico | MEX | 20200330 | C2: Workplace closing | 3 | 1 |
Immediate suspension, from March 30 to April 30, 2020, of non-essential
activities in the public, private and social sectors
|
FALSE |
Mexico | MEX | 20200415 | C2: Workplace closing | 3 | 1 |
Immediate suspension, from March 30 to April 30, 2020, of non-essential
activities in the public, private and social sectors
|
TRUE |
Namibia | NAM | 20200327 | C6: Stay at home requirements | 2 | 0 |
For Khomas and Erdongo regions: “All residents in the restricted areas,
including Okahandja and Rehoboth local authority areas are not allowed
to leave their homes during the lockdown period, unless such movement by
any person in the restricted area is for the following reasons: a.
Travel by persons listed in Section 2 above; b. Visits to pharmacies,
food supply stores, courts, banks and for medical reasons; c. Physical
exercise in groups of not more than three (3) persons.”
|
FALSE |
Namibia | NAM | 20200418 | C6: Stay at home requirements | 2 | 0 |
For Khomas and Erdongo regions: “All residents in the restricted areas,
including Okahandja and Rehoboth local authority areas are not allowed
to leave their homes during the lockdown period, unless such movement by
any person in the restricted area is for the following reasons: a.
Travel by persons listed in Section 2 above; b. Visits to pharmacies,
food supply stores, courts, banks and for medical reasons; c. Physical
exercise in groups of not more than three (3) persons.”
|
TRUE |
Sudan | SDN | 20200314 | C2: Workplace closing | 1 | 1 |
Quotation: On 14 March, the Government of Sudan announced that
government and private institutions should take measures to reduce
congestion in the workplace. Link:
|
FALSE |
Sudan | SDN | 20200417 | C2: Workplace closing | 1 | 1 |
Quotation: On 14 March, the Government of Sudan announced that
government and private institutions should take measures to reduce
congestion in the workplace. Link:
|
TRUE |
Sudan | SDN | 20200313 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Quotation (bio): Sudanese Government Coved Outreach Initiative 19 -
Coordination initiative to promote health awareness and education on
Covid 19 and the new Coronavirus Link: |
FALSE |
Sudan | SDN | 20200417 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Quotation (bio): Sudanese Government Coved Outreach Initiative 19 -
Coordination initiative to promote health awareness and education on
Covid 19 and the new Coronavirus Link: |
TRUE |
San Marino | SMR | 20200225 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Covid-19 hotline active since February 25. Source:
|
FALSE |
San Marino | SMR | 20200505 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Covid-19 hotline active since February 25. Source:
|
TRUE |
Slovenia | SVN | 20200404 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
COVID-19 Website Link:
|
FALSE |
Slovenia | SVN | 20200418 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
COVID-19 Website Link:
|
TRUE |
Chad | TCD | 20200423 | E1: Income support | 2 | 1 |
CFAF 15 billion (0.3 percent of non-oil GDP) of health-related
expenditures have been approved and are being implemented under a
national contingency plan. Key measures include: (i) training of medical
and technical staff, (ii) purchase of necessary medical equipment, (iii)
construction of seven health centers in remote areas, (iv) construction
of three mobile hospitals, and (v) securely managing entry points. The
authorities have also decided on a package of fiscal measures to help
households and businesses weather the shock. For small and medium-sized
enterprises, the authorities will, among other things, reduce by 50
percent the business license fees and the presumptive tax for 2020. Tax
breaks such as carryforward losses and delays in tax payments will also
be examined on a case-by-case basis.
|
FALSE |
Chad | TCD | 20200424 | E1: Income support | 2 | 1 |
CFAF 15 billion (0.3 percent of non-oil GDP) of health-related
expenditures have been approved and are being implemented under a
national contingency plan. Key measures include: (i) training of medical
and technical staff, (ii) purchase of necessary medical equipment, (iii)
construction of seven health centers in remote areas, (iv) construction
of three mobile hospitals, and (v) securely managing entry points. The
authorities have also decided on a package of fiscal measures to help
households and businesses weather the shock. For small and medium-sized
enterprises, the authorities will, among other things, reduce by 50
percent the business license fees and the presumptive tax for 2020. Tax
breaks such as carryforward losses and delays in tax payments will also
be examined on a case-by-case basis.
|
TRUE |
Tunisia | TUN | 20200320 | C7: Restrictions on internal movement | 2 | 1 |
In a televised address, Saied announed new restrictions on public
movement, saying city-to-city travel had been
banned.https://web.archive.org/save/ |
FALSE |
Tunisia | TUN | 20200418 | C7: Restrictions on internal movement | 2 | 1 |
In a televised address, Saied announed new restrictions on public
movement, saying city-to-city travel had been
banned.https://web.archive.org/save/ |
TRUE |
Ukraine | UKR | 20200303 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
The Ukrainian Government has created a special information page with all
relevant information in addition to daily briefings by the chief medical
officer and government officials:
|
FALSE |
Ukraine | UKR | 20200403 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
The Ukrainian Government has created a special information page with all
relevant information in addition to daily briefings by the chief medical
officer and government officials:
|
TRUE |
Venezuela | VEN | 20200410 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Establishment of a national committee for corona, and public campaign to
raise awareness |
FALSE |
Venezuela | VEN | 20200428 | H1: Public information campaigns | 2 | 1 |
Establishment of a national committee for corona, and public campaign to
raise awareness |
TRUE |
Thanks Joachim, that's really helpful. We've looked into the duplicates and there are a couple of reasons here:
We're working through these. We are also working on producing our own "event"/"response" level csv.
Regardless of the duplicate observations, you will still find there are many many cases where we add a note without changing the PolicyValue or Flag. For your purposes, I would suggest simply ignore the notes. And for that matter, ignore any "change" that has the same CountryCode, PolicyType, PolicyValue, Flag and Notes as the immediate most recent change for that same CountryCode/PolicyType.
Cheers, Toby
Just a heads up: we're now publishing a csv of policy responses... let me know what you think!
Cheers, Toby
Dear OxCRGT Team:
Thank you again for your tremendous data collection efforts and for putting this repo online. This is a very good idea. I maintain a related R package {tidycovid19}. Given timeliness and importance of this data, I have been looking into the data quality of this project in the past. See here for an admittedly dated blog post. I would like to mention three important issues that I believe addressing would improve the internal consistency of your data. All points are substantiated with some R code below.
In this repo you are not providing the notes to the data (the CSV link on your webpage does). As the notes provide the reference for a certain measurement, I think that they are absolutely essential for researchers to assess the quality of your data. I would definitely include them here.
Zero values compared to missing values. Based on the code below, only 7 % of your zero values are supported by references, while more than 90 % of the other measures are. Yet, zero measures are the most frequent data value in your analysis (44 % of the non-NA cases). I would strongly encourage you to reconsider all zero measures that you do not have references for. For me it seems as if your zeros are in some cases informed statements about certain measures not being present whereas in most cases they indicate nothing different from NA.
Organization of data by country-day observations. This is causing me a lot of headaches. Another high-quality repository for government intervention data provided by ACAPS provides its data in country-response structure, meaning that a government response characterizes an observation. This is also how regulatory intervention data is normally stored. It makes much more sense from a data collection standpoint and allows one to validate your data much quicker. For example, in order to assess how many of your interventions are actually supported by references, one first has to assess changes over time, assume that these are driven by government interventions, and then calculate the according statistics. See the code below for what I mean. Transforming your data to a country-response structure reduces your 143,874 country-response type-day observations to 8,184 country-response observations without any loss if information. When you focus on changes in the actual measures (and not in the references that are not included on Github), this number reduces even more to 4,310. For this focused sample it is much easier to provide data quality assurance and you can still produce any view/slice and cut of the data as you like.
Minor things that you might want to clean up
Thank you for listening and again for your contributions to open science!
Joachim
PS: Code follows