Location Analytics: A Roadmap to Post COVID-19`
The past few months have seen a surge in location technology applications globally, with maps appearing on news broadcasts and citizens discussing spatial analysis. Governments have also been using spatial data for contact tracing, lockdown enforcement, and symptom diagnosis. As the pandemic progresses, geography has become increasingly important, especially for professionals with expertise in both Geography and Data Science. The American Enterprise Institute's report outlines four phases of recovery: slowing the spread, reopening state by state, establishing protection, and rebuilding readiness for the next pandemic. Location analytics can help during each phase through real use cases, such as monitoring community adherence to physical distancing, increasing diagnostic testing capacity, ensuring functioning healthcare systems, implementing comprehensive COVID-19 surveillance systems, and mass scaling contact tracing and isolation measures. To move from one phase to another, a set of actions and achievements must be seen as societal indicators, which can be triggered by the effective use of geospatial technologies.