AAPS: Huron freshman creates COVID-19 dashboard to help viewers quickly visualize the curve

By Jo Mathis/AAPS District News Editor

Huron High School freshman Armaan Kamat has created a COVID-19 dashboard for Washtenaw County that includes daily graphs of the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and new cases occurring in Washtenaw County.

“We’ve all been hearing about flattening the curve, but when I searched for what was happening in Washtenaw County, I realized that there was no curve that all of us could see on a local level—even though there’s a lot of data about the state, national and global levels,” he says. “Which is why I created this website.”

New data is automatically gathered every day from the State of Michigan’s Coronavirus data website and converted into a graph by a program he wrote.

“When we look back on this data, I hope it’s helpful to students like myself, all the way up to county-level decision-makers to put COVID-19 into perspective,” he says.

Armaan is not used to staying at home. He’s a member of the M-Fly Aerodynamics Team at the University of Michigan; a student pilot with Solo Aviation at the Ann Arbor Airport; and a junior instructor at Ann Arbor Taekwondo School.

In addition to keeping the website running, he now fills his days reading, watching TV, cooking a new recipe every day, and improving his coding skills.

Although he’s enjoyed spending more time at home with his family, he says it’s unfortunate that the situation reached a point where school had to close for the rest of the year.

“I miss meeting my friends and interacting with teachers in person,” he says, “because even though we are all at home and have some extra time, we still cannot meet until the risk of spreading COVID-19 is significantly lowered.”