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.
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).
Changes to prepare for release on CRAN. Released May 4, 2021.
Removed extra variables in the metadata tables.
Storing geographic data as compressed geojson files.
Split fips_to_name into two functions:
state_fips_to_name and county_fips_to_name to
make the behavior more consistent.
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.