Recently, as COVID-19 pandemic spreads across many countries, mainstream media or government health departments in many countries, are quoting the epidemic data update map Johns Hopkins University in the United States when updating the epidemic release.

A black-bottomed and red-spotted map with the confirmed, dead and recovered cases listed on its left and right sides become the most popular background picture of the recent global mainstream media coverage of the epidemic. Even the U.S. Department of Health uses this map to monitor national cases when US Vice President Pence inspected the Department; when the Italian Prime Minister and German Cabinet are holding a meeting, the electronic screen behind the leaders are depending on the map to show the real-time situation of the outbreak of the pandemic.

The chart is made by two doctoral students from China, Dong Ensheng and Du Hongru. Both of them are first-year doctoral students of the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering, Johns Hopkins University.

Dong Ensheng's research direction is disease model, that is, using a mathematical model and computer code to explain some epidemiological, public health problems, to make a basic judgment and speculation on the development trend of the global pandemic. 

Dong Ensheng said he and his tutor started with data collection and preparation for the next step of academic research, but he didn't expect that it would become a worldwide concern for statistical reference with development of the pandemic, which also makes him and the team feel more responsibility and more need to keep the data rigorous and accurate day and night.

The School of Public Health of Johns Hopkins University has ranked first in the United States for many years. The high-quality data of Dong Ensheng, Du Hongru, and their team have become the basis of academic research by many research teams and important information sources for the scientific community to understand the COVID -19 pandemic situation.

Since joining the team on February 1st, Du Hongru, as a first-year doctoral student, has been responsible for data collection and collation and comparison them with that of WHO; after the system can automatically update the data, his important task is to write automatic update code, which takes tremendous effort to ensure data uniformity and accuracy.

In addition to the honor of being able to participate in person in such a project of global concern as well as multi-domain expertise and knowledge mastered in a short period of time, for Dong Ensheng and Du Hongru, maintaining this website is a kind of exercise and promotion for their sense of responsibility and academic rigor. Also, when the epidemic continues to affect the world, both Dong and Du also believe that the world should strengthen cooperation, learn from China's successful prevention and control experience so as to put the spread of the epidemic under control in the world.