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Collecting and encoding the measures taken against the spread of COVID2019 in Switzerland

Introduction

Since February 25, 2020 Switzerland has been affected by COVID-19. Modelling predictions show that this pandemic will not stop on its own and that stringent migitation strategies are needed. Switzerland has implemented a series of measures both at cantonal and federal level. The aim of this project is to collect and categorize these control measures and create a continuously updated data set, which can be used for modelling or visualization purposes. Please cite the DOI if you use this dataset.

This project is a collaborative effort by volunteers (see contributors below). The repository is open to contribution, please open an issue if you want to become a collaborator.

Methods

Data collection

We collect the date/duration and level of the most important measures taken in response to COVID-19 from official cantonal and federal press releases for each Kanton of Switzerland. The most current version is available for download in this repository.

We consider the following measures:

measure	levels	comment
carefacilities	0=no restriction, 1=restricted access, 2=access prohibited	includes hospitals, nursing and disabled homes
casemanagement	0=no, 1=yes	includes testing, isolation, quarantine and triage
daycare	0=no restriction, 1=restricted access or closed	includes Krippe and Hort
events	0=no restriction, 1=events > 1000 persons banned, 2=events > 500 persons banned, 3=events > 100 persons banned, 4=events > 50 persons banned, 5=events > 10 persons banned, 6=events > 5 persons banned	includes events and mass gatherings of any kind
stayathome	0=no, 1=yes	Switzerland does not have an official "lockdown" policy in the sense of a shelter-in-place order. This category means a "strong recommendation to stay at home".
mobilityint	0=no restriction, 1=restriction of cross-border mobility, 2=closing of borders
publicoffices	0=no restriction, 1=closed	includes public offices with counters such as tax office or vehicle registration office
publicplaces	0=no restriction, 1=closed	includes museums, sports facilities, parks
publictransport	0=no restriction, 1=reduced
recommendations	0=no, 1=yes	includes information campaigns and general recommendations such as respiratory hygiene and physical distancing
retailgastro	0=no restriction, 1=restricted access, 2=closure	includes all non-essential retail, gastronomy and entertainment places as well as businesses with direct contact (hair dressers, massage,…)
schools	0=no restriction, 1=closed	includes primary and secondary school as well as Kindergarten
universities	0=no restriction, 1=closed

The data are collected in a Google spreadsheet and updated periodically. The files are available for download from this repository with the date indicating the last update (file names measures_CH_2020-XX-XX.csv). The file measures_CH_2020.csv is the most recent version of the data as it is collected, but it may not be equally complete for all cantons. The file measures_detailed_CH.csv contains more details on the collected interventions, notably URL links to the respective cantonal or federal press releases.

Results

For a visualization of the measures until 2020-06-04, see here. There is also a (simple) R Shiny app with visualizations and links to the press releases underlying the presented data.

Data usage

You are free to use these data under the CC-BY-NC creative commons license. Please cite this project whenever you use the data.

Workflow for colaborators

Raw data are collected in Google Sheets (access restricted to collaborators, get in touch if you want to contribute). Here, each row corresponds to one interention in one canton or the whole of Switzerland.
The script code/pull_data_from_drive.R collects the data from the Google sheets, updates the csv files in your local data folder and the pooled data set measures_detailed_CH.csv. Note that access is again limited to collaborators. If you just want to use the data please download them from this repository.
The script code/reformat_data.R generates the more parsimonious version measures_CH.csv from measures_detailed_CH.csv.
All updated csv files can then be committed and pushed to github (if necessary add a new measures_CH_2020-XX-XX.csv file manually).

Disclaimer

It is possible that some measures are missing because they were not communicated explicitly on the websites of the cantonal administrations. If you spot an error or want to make a suggestion for adding data, please open an issue.

Contributors

Related projects

collection of data on the number of confirmed cases and on the number of performed tests, patients with severe disease progression and number of recovered patients. This is part of another challenge of this hackathon. This data can be considered the dependent variable and can be used directly (with the usual caveats regarding specificity, sensitivity, sampling bias etc.) to measure the effect of the measures.
collection of data on mobility, air quality, mobile phone location data (eg https://github.com/statistikZH/monitoring_covid19/blob/master/Mobility_GooglePopularTimeGraph.md) and data on consumer behavior. This information doesn't directly correlate with case data, however it can be used to infer the adhesion of the general population to the imposed measures regardless of their disease status.

ARCHIVED: Raw initial data collection

Initially, we collected all information about all measures undertaken until 2020-04-06 verbatim in Google spreadsheets and categorized each item according to the categories below. From these raw data, we define the most important measures and aggregated the data set as described above to make it more useful for research. The original raw dataset is still available, but will not be updated.

varname	description	select
country	ISO code of the country where the measure applies
unit	administrative unit. Whenever possible, use the ISO_3166-2 code. For cities, use full name in German, French or Italian. For measures taken by private enterprises or organisations, use their full name
date_implemented	date when the measure is implemented
date_lifted	date when the measure is lifted
measure	textual description of the measure
level	level of the administrative unit	cantonal, national, municipality, private
measure_cat	category of measure	case management, economic, mass gatherings, mobility, other, private institutions access, public institutions access, recommendations
measure_sub_cat	subcategory of measure	see below
source	URL of the source
entered_by	initials of who entered the data and set the categories
reviewed_by	initials of who reviewed the categories
The measurements have the following subcategories:

measure_cat	measure_sub_cat	note	law
case management	contact tracing		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 15
case management	isolation and self-isolation	Isolation at home or in care facility of cases	Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 35b
case management	management of dead bodies		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 46
case management	quarantine and self-quarantine	isolation at home or in care facility of suspected cases or contacts	Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 35a
case management	testing
economic		Including monetary or fiscal support, suspension of tax claims
mass gatherings	ban of events / mass gatherings of > 10 persons		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2a
mass gatherings	ban of events / mass gatherings of > 100 persons		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2a
mass gatherings	ban of events / mass gatherings of > 1000 persons		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2a
mass gatherings	ban of events / mass gatherings of > 5 persons		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2a
mass gatherings	ban of events / mass gatherings of > 50 persons		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2a
mass gatherings	ban of events / mass gatherings of > 500 persons		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2a
mass gatherings	event permit required		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2a
mobility	ban of cross-border mobility	No incoming mobility allowed	Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 41
mobility	restriction of cross-border mobility	Incoming mobility allowed for restricted purposes (e.g. work)	Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 41
mobility	shelter-in-place order, curfew	Prohibited to leave the house except for essential errands
mobility	stay-at-home recommendation	Strong recommendation to stay and work from home
other		Including suspension of elective surgeries or political events or reallocation of resources
retail_gastro_recreation	ban of access to retail, gastronomy and recreation and businesses with close contact	Including restaurants, bars, clubs, hair dressers, massage and beauty salons	Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2b
retail_gastro_recreation	restriction of access to retail, gastronomy and recreation	Including restriction on maximum number of people or minimum distance, business hours, restriction on use of infrastructure	Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2b
public institution access	ban of access to public open areas and parks		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2c
public institution access	ban of access to short- and long-term care facilites	Including hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and disabled homes	Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2b, Art. 19, 2d
public institution access	closure of day care	Includes Kita	Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2b
public institution access	closure of public places (museums, sports facilities, ..)		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2b
public institution access	closure of public offices and counters		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2b
public institution access	closure of schools	Schools including Kindergarten	Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2b
public institution access	closure of universities		Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2b
public institution access	restriction of access to short- and long-term care facilites	Including hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and disabled homes	Swiss Epidemics Act, Art. 40, 2b, Art. 19, 2d
recommendation_information		Including information campaigns and recommendations for hand washing, respiratory hygiene and physical distancing, establishment of hotlines