NEWS.md
covidcast_meta() now caches the server’s response for a length of time specified by the COVIDcast API server, based on how frequently the metadata is recomputed. Because covidcast_meta() is called by covidcast_signal(), this saves one API call per call to covidcast_signal(). (@krivard, #645)
covidcast_meta() now more clearly reports errors when the API usage limit has been reached.
Package vignettes have been adjusted so they do not make requests to the COVIDcast API during CRAN check runs. This change only affects the package build and check process, and shouldn’t affect end users.
covidcast_signals() now supports the time_type argument, to match covidcast_signal(). If you used optional arguments to covidcast_signals() by position rather than by name, this may cause problems until you switch to using named arguments.
Package vignettes have been altered to demonstrate more widely suitable signals, and to consolidate on a smaller set of signals.
The package now supports supplying API keys with requests to the COVIDcast Epidata API. Beginning June 21, 2023, the Epidata API server will limit the rate and type of queries made without an API key. See the “API keys” section of ?covidcast_signal for details on how to obtain and specify an API key. (@krivard, #618)
Updates to be compatible with changes in dplyr 1.1.0. (@capnrefsmmat, #620)
plot(). On platforms using ATLAS as the BLAS implementation, rotation created invalid polygons, resulting in errors that prevented any plotting from working. Without rotation, Puerto Rico is slightly tilted compared to the rest of the United States.Fetching large amounts of data with covidcast_signal() should now be much faster, as the package now uses a new API endpoint with much higher row limits. Most requests can be served in a single API call, rather than being split across many API calls.
The map data included in the package has been improved. There should no longer be gaps between adjacent geographical areas, resulting in better-looking choropleth maps (@statsmaths, #542).
Miscellaneous improvements to documentation, such as clearer examples for covidcast_cor().
Updated CITATION for the package; see citation("covidcast").
The package tests now support vdiffr 1.0.0.
Updates to conform to latest tidyselection syntax (@hadley, #590).
Released January 19, 2021.
Removed the dependency on the usmap package, which was removed from CRAN on January 10, 2021.
plot.covidcast_signal() now supports mapping Puerto Rico in bubble plots.
The county_geo and state_geo built-in datasets have been removed. These were used to support bubble plots, but the changes to plot.covidcast_signal() rendered them unnecessary.
fips_to_name() or name_to_cbsa(), are now much faster when given input vectors with many duplicate values.Released January 13, 2021.
The plot.covidcast_signal() method now supports making choropleth plots for metropolitan areas and hospital referral regions.
A new as.covidcast_signal() generic function makes it easy to turn any data frame, such as data loaded from an external source, into a covidcast_signal object that can be plotted and wrangled using the functions in this package. See vignette("external-data") for examples.
The new latest_issue() and earliest_issue() functions make it easy to filter data frames with multiple issues of each observation, obtaining only the latest or earliest issue of each.
covidcast_signal(), covidcast_signals(), and covidcast_meta() now support signals with time_type = "week". Select signals in the API are offered at weekly resolution. They also now support signals with geo_types of “nation” and “hhs”, corresponding to national estimates and Department of Health & Human Services Regional Offices (“HHS regions”).
covidcast_signal() now batches requests, so that many days of data can be fetched in one API call. This dramatically improves the speed of fetching state-, MSA-, and HRR-level data, since many days of data can be fetched in one API call. County-level signals, such as cases and deaths, may still require one API call per day, since the API’s row limit is only slightly larger than the number of counties in the United States.
covidcast_signal() now fetches data from the API server in CSV format, rather than JSON, which requires less bandwidth and parsing.
covidcast_cor() is dramatically faster than before.
Released October 31, 2020.
covidcast_cor() function now interprets its dt_x and dt_y arguments in the opposite way as before, i.e. what was once a positive lag is now a negative lag. See the documentation for details.covidcast_signals() function allows users to query multiple signals from the API at once, returning a list of data frames. The aggregate_signals() function can convert this list into a “wide” or “long” format data frame for further analysis, while covidcast_wider() and covidcast_longer() can convert from “long” to “wide” format and vice versa.Released August 22, 2020.
New covidcast_cor() function for calculating correlations between COVIDcast signals. See vignette("correlation-utils") for examples.
New utility functions name_to_fips() and name_to_cbsa() to look up FIPS codes (for counties) or CBSA codes (for metropolitan statistical areas) based on the names of the counties or MSAs.
New utility functions fips_to_name() and cbsa_to_name() to find the names corresponding to FIPS codes (for counties) or CBSA codes (for metropolitan statistical areas).
New summary.covidcast_meta() S3 method for summary(), to print summaries of objects returned from covidcast_meta().
Released July 26, 2020.
Name change: The package is now called covidcast, not covidcastR. If already installed, users should remove covidcastR using remove.packages() and then install covidcast using the instructions in vignette("covidcast").
Incompatible change: The covidcast_signal() function now takes start_day and end_day arguments as strings in the form YYYY-MM-DD, rather than YYYYMMDD, for consistency with as.Date() and other common R usage. The arguments can also be passed as Date objects directly.
New plotting and mapping features provide convenient visualizations of signals. See vignette("plotting-signals") for examples.
New feature: The covidcast_signal() function now supports arguments as_of, issues, and lag, allowing users to request specific versions of data in the API. This allows users to track revisions of data and to see only data that was available as of a specific date. See vignette("covidcast") for examples.
covidcast_signal() is now a data frame augmented with extra attributes indicating the geography type and signal metadata. Additional data_source and signal columns are provided, in anticipation of options to request more than one signal at once. Methods for print and summary are provided (as print.covidcast_signal() and summary.covidcast_signal()) to conveniently view these objects. They can still be used as ordinary data frames as well.