Dunoon student’s Covid tracking leads to MBE honour
‘You never really think that your small hometown will be affected by these things.’
A Dunoon student has been awarded an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours announced this week, writes Fiona Ross.
John Frace received the Member of the British Empire honour for services to public health communication during the Covid pandemic.
When Scotland went into lockdown, the 26-year-old, who is a UHI Argyll student, began keeping track of the data surrounding the Covid virus for personal interest.
He then shared the data he was compiling with others online, in a simplified format.
Feedback from the public encouraged him to set up a dedicated page on his existing travel blog website to focus on Scottish Covid data.
Explaining what inspired him to develop the site, John said: ‘When the virus started to spread outside of China and become a big deal in Europe I was following it pretty closely.
‘I heard a rumour that there had been a death in Dunoon from the virus and the reality really struck.
‘At first, the virus was just something that was happening in China, and then it was something in England, and then it was just something up in Glasgow. You never really think that your small hometown will be affected by these kind of things.
‘The Scottish Government had started breaking down the numbers by region and I decided to keep track of it in a spreadsheet.
‘I was sharing pictures of the spreadsheet online and someone suggested that I host the image on an updatable webpage so that they could bookmark the link and visit it each day, seeing updated numbers. That gave me the idea to create the website.’
A spokesperson for the Scotland Office said: ‘It is acknowledged that the accessible information John provided removed the anxiety felt by some of the public during the pandemic as it assists in the understanding of the bigger picture and its relationship to local circumstances.
‘NHS workers, in particular, find the site remarkably helpful, using it to keep track of the situation in their own local area.’ Since John set up the web pages the site has flourished in response to increased demand.
Such was the impact of his local pages he was inspired to expand focus to include the UK as a whole, while still including the same depth of local data.
Despite attracting interest from advertisers, which would generate income, John has rejected this in favour of maintaining the simplicity of his sites, continuing to offer ease of use and relying instead on donations to keep the site running.
He devotes hours each day to the maintenance of the sites and replying to the hundreds of emails he receives while continuing his university studies.
The spokesperson added: ‘From a community-spirited venture at the start of lockdown, John’s page has reached over 7.5m hits, an incredible result for a university student balancing his studies with the personal impact of the pandemic.’