City Level COVID-19 Data Reveals Fourth Wave Surge

TORONTO – CitiIQ collects daily COVID-19 data for more than 2,600 cities around the world that is made publicly available at https://unhabitat.citiiq.com/. The site shows the wide range of differences between cities and communities, even as the aggregated data affirms the overall trend of increasing spread (see: https://unhabitat.citiiq.com/). Over the last 14 days, the number of measured cities showing significant upward trending in cases (10% +) is outpacing those with significant downward trending at a 10:1 ratio.

CitiIQ is known for its unique system measuring the 35 most critical considerations of a city. Most cities struggle to translate the increasing volume of disparate data into actions that can make life better for their citizens. The CitiIQ measurement system converts raw data into scores out of 100 so that city elements are easily understood and readily comparable within a given city over time, or with other cities around the world.

In April 2020 as the pandemic was expanding globally, UN-Habitat commissioned CitiIQ to develop the tracking site specifically for this need. Cities are connected in multiple ways and most notably through their people. This means that local leaders require wider situational awareness of factors that directly affect the citizens of their cities.

This latest surge appears to be influenced by the Delta variant, relaxing restrictions, and uneven vaccination rates. Detecting, tracking and responding to these dynamics remains critical.

Measuring our cities is critically important. Milton Friesen, Managing Director of CitiIQ explains, “The complex challenges for city leadership are profound - ever demanding, ever changing, with the enormous pressures of caring for the needs and demands of citizens. Surprisingly, there are few places leaders can look to find objective measurements comprehensive enough for the broad considerations of the city along with a framework to compare to other cities. This is the very reason CitiIQ exists.”

As cities emerge from the impact of COVID-19, it has never been more important to be able to determine the state of a given city at any point in time. CitiIQ provides a platform where meaningful, human scale data integration is made available.

Country-level graphics are posted regularly on Twitter and LinkedIn and offer a mid-level vantage point on trending between city and global patterns. These varying scales of analyses support publicity and policy efforts that can shape citizen behaviour toward lower cases and lives lost.

For further information CONTACT:
Milton Friesen, Managing Director
mfriesen@citiiq.com

Don Simmonds