Carla Cometto
With the constant flood of coronavirus news and new developments, it’s tough to stay on top of everything (especially with all the misinformation floating around). We’ve gathered up four reliable and easy-to-read sources for helping you stay current.
The CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus Situation Summary
This section of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website is entirely dedicated to updates and guidance related to the outbreak of the virus in the US.
Here you’ll find official updates, information about steps the government is taking to manage the situation in the country, information about the virus itself, and important recommendations given by the experts.
It’s got the boring styling of a government website because, well, it is. But it’s updated frequently and sometimes a boring and clinical approach free from news headlines and flashy graphics is best.
The COVID-19 GIS Dashboard by John Hopkins CSSE
As the situation in Wuhan turned into a global public health emergency back in January, a team at the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University developed this user-friendly tool to monitor the spread of the disease around the world.
On this dark-mode dashboard, you can track the numbers of confirmed cases, deaths, and recoveries by country. You can also browse an interactive world map with cumulative confirmed cases and active cases. It’s a handy dashboard with visual information to help keep you in the loop.
The Coronavirus Outbreak Page by Worldometer
If you love data, this is the website for you. Here, you can find all the live updates on numbers and relevant world news. You can find information about confirmed cases, separated into active and closed ones, graphs of total cases and total deaths, and a variety of different stats per country.
At the bottom of the page, you can read the latest updates about the numbers, listed concisely and with links to all the sources. Don’t let the simplistic low-key look of the screenshot above lead you to believe the site is light on information. Check it out and keep scrolling to see all it offers. The site is particularly well formatted for mobile reading. If you bookmark any of these sites for mobile use, this should certainly be one of them. It’s your go-to website in this pandemic crisis.
Coronavirus Outbreak News by The New York Times
In light of the severity of the situation, the New York Times is now giving the public free access to all information regarding the outbreak. The main dashboard is accessible without a user account, but to actually read the linked articles (for free!) you’ll need to set up an NYT account if you don’t already have one.
Though you will be frequently encouraged by small pop-up windows to pay for a full-access subscription to the entire website, you can easily navigate through the latest news about the novel coronavirus and all that’s happening in the US and around the world.
When the world is faced with a critical situation, it’s important to stay up to date with current events and know exactly where to get your information. Fake news is prevalent and the misinformation can often cause people to panic, doing more harm than good.
So, stay informed, wash your hands, engage in social distancing, and hold on tight until the health crisis is over.
