Team creates website to centralize travelling restriction imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic

A group of 4 researchers, who met as colleagues at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, developed Covid Controls, a website that helps people who need or want to travel during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mohit Shah, one of the developers, says that they created the website “because we saw there was no comprehensive Covid-19 dashboard specifically geared towards travelers, especially at a time when the situation is changing so rapidly.”

The website gathers information about traveling restriction from every country around the world. Travelers that visit the site will have access to “everything a foreign visitor needs to know” before traveling, for instance: if the country is allowing tourist, detailing nationalities that are allowed or banned from entering the country; details on documentation and medical tests required; information on whether the country in imposing quarantine to newcomers; and even the country’s situation regarding restaurants, bars and tourist attractions.

To further help travelers make their decision on whether they should travel, the website also shows each country’s updated Covid-19 statistics, including new daily cases, number of active cases and outbreak trends that “shows where the curve is flattening, growing or declining”, Mohit Shah explains. To further help the travelers, for each country there is also a list of sources and media publications that give detailed information about the situation at any given time.

The team operating the site tracks over 5000 official sources, including national health authorities, various tourism boards, official foreign travel advisories and local news agencies. And the website is working on fine tuning the information, showing not only general country data but also showing data in a smaller scale, already including data for USA and Canada’s sates, Canada’s provinces and territories and Russia’s districts.

Adapted from: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/21/where-to-find-international-travel-info-...
More information: https://covidcontrols.co/