Mesoscale News with Rebekah Jones

Mesoscale News with Rebekah Jones

Benjy Renton

The White House COVID-19 outbreak tracker became one of the most illustrative data pieces of the failure of the Trump administration in handling the pandemic. The 21-year-old college senior behind the project started collecting that data out of curiosity

Rebekah Jones's avatar
Rebekah Jones
Feb 28, 2021
∙ Paid

The Newcomers Cohort (Vermont)

Benjy Renton (Vermont)

The White House COVID-19 outbreak tracker became one of the most illustrative data pieces of the failure of the Trump administration in handling the pandemic.

The 21-year-old college senior behind the project started collecting that data out of curiosity on a piece of paper after Donald Trump tested positive last October.

Not long after, Benjy Renton's other COVID-19 data projects and maps were being shared across the world, informing decision makers and driving national discussions about school reopening and more - work he had been doing throughout the pandemic.

"It snowballed into a much larger project that started initially with the first White House outbreak.. and went into December," he said.

Benjy tracks cases in universities, too. And he tracks which counties in the United State are (or are not) meeting the CDC's recently revised metrics for reopening schools safely.

https://twitter.com/bhrenton/status/1363647034633379840

He was in …

User's avatar

Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Rebekah Jones.

Or purchase a paid subscription.
© 2026 Rebekah Jones · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture