A Decision-Making Dashboard for COVID-19 Response in Africa

There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic; governments have had to adapt suppression and control strategies based on finding the balance of complex political, social, economic and health considerations. This means that governments must continuously monitor not only data related to their primary objective (i.e., limiting COVID-19 cases and deaths), but also the factors that constrain that objective. A key challenge in many countries is that the data available to inform and adapt strategy are largely limited to disease transmission or public health and health system capacity. Data and analysis on social and economic burdens, public sentiment, and adherence to public health social measures (PHSMs) have been less readily available to response teams. This has contributed to a tendency to pit public health imperatives against economic needs, rather than incorporating a holistic set of factors in a systematic way to inform decision-making. To support decision-makers in understanding the complex interactions of disease transmission, response options and secondary impacts, the Partnership for EvidenceBased Response to COVID-19 (PERC) has developed a decision-making framework and accompanying dashboard to support the use of multi-sectoral data in guiding national-level COVID-19 response strategy. With an emphasis on Africa, the framework draws on country experiences in managing the COVID-19 response and highlights both elements of effective responses and common challenges. The dashboard and framework are living documents that will be improved and adapted in response to real-time learning and feedback.