Valentina D’Efilippo, Arpad Ray, and Duncan Geere visualized and sonified Covid-19 rates and vaccinations in London Under the Microscope. Best viewed with headphones on. Geere on the sound:

Here’s how it works. There are two melodic saw wave drones separated by an octave – the higher represents cases, and the lower represents deaths. The chords that make them up each reflect the balance of different variants over time. As the data spikes, so does the filter cutoff.

The bassline reflects movement data. When people are moving around the city a lot, you hear the bassline move faster. During lockdown, when people were confined to their homes, it slows to a single beat for each bar.

Tags: coronavirus, London, sonification