In Search of an Integrated Corona Knowledge Ecosystem for Actionable Health Policy - A Mind Mapping Voyage and an Exploratory Decomposition in Spatial Pandemetrics

This paper seeks to map out the knowledge requirements and infrastructure needed for a comprehensive and quantitative analysis of the societal and geographical dimensions of effective policies regarding COVID-19 (‘coronametrics’ or ‘pandemetrics’). After a sketch of limitations and challenges in corona research, a multi-layer mind map is designed in order to systematically scan the cognitive needs in the corona domain and to address both health policy and socioeconomic-medical information requirements in a geographic context, with a particular view to the use of actionable dashboards. A systematic decomposition of the corona knowledge system is pursued to acquire a coherent insight into gaps in corona knowledge, with particular emphasis on policy and research relevance. It turns out that the study of causality patterns in the complex spacetime evolution of COVID-19 is the Achilles’ heel in the analysis of pandemetrics and calls for new effective and preventive research endeavors in support of actionable health policy.