I’m pleased that CNN noted that Henry Niman’s H1N1 virus map is interesting,but not official…and NOT made by Google.
Perhaps more interesting is this statement about why the World Health Organization does not offer an official map of its data:
The WHO doesn’t make a map like Niman’s partly for technical reasons. It needs to communicate effectively around the world,and online interactive maps are difficult to use in developing countries without high-speed Internet connections,notes WHO spokesperson Lina Tucker Reinders.
I have no issues about interactive maps being difficult to use with slow connections. Could the maps be non-interactive? Could they be PDFs? Could they be updated every few hours? Is the expectation that those on the slow lines download the data and make their own maps? I could not find a dataset to download from WHO on its H1N1 page.