So recently, in the midst of the lockdown, I decided to build an app that tracks and visualizes COVID 19 cases of the Philippines. The data comes from Department of Health (DOH): I pull the individual cases and run jobs to aggregate data for charts. The reception was great, people were really engaged.

However, three days later the data stopped coming in. It turns out the DOH Tracker was up for maintenance and is expected to be back after Holy Week. It went back online today with lots of changes including the public API no longer available (or at least none that I am aware of).

The data I pulled from them is saved locally so the site is still up and can continue to do so. But ultimately it’s pointless if I cannot update the data. Right now, I am not giving up and I’m currently looking for alternative source of data—even if I have to manually copy it. I am going to give it for a week or two, if I cannot find the data, I will shut down the app.

It was a great experience building the app. Getting appreciation from people is a great reward. If I would shut down the app, I would gladly put my efforts to another project.

To the next one!