COVID-19 coronavirus: Get your facts straight with these resources and online courses

COVID-19 coronavirus: Get your facts straight with these resources and online courses | In these times of hysteria, misinformation and scaremongering, it’s important that you understand the facts surrounding the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

COVID-19 coronavirus straight facts with these resources and online courses

We’ve compiled a list of usefull data (resources and courses), and highlighted a useful dashboard that charts daily numbers, but in this piece, we’re looking at online resources.

These are courses, white-papers, and information sheets that you should stow away for future reading created by reputable companies and agencies.

WHO

The World Health Organisation has a number of online training courses for COVID-19. Although some of these are for health care professionals, they could prove useful for laypeople too.
This resource is compiled specifically by WHO’s Africa regional branch. It includes a myth-busting section, travel advice, and social media cards on personal protection.
WHO has a detailed Q&A section here.
WHO’s live event ticker can be found here.

US CDC

The US CDC has published its guidance for citizens, from how it spreads to prevention and treatment.
A print-friendly fact sheet is available here.
If you’re travelling, the CDC also has guidance on risk assessments for each country on earth as well as an FAQ.
For teachers and school administrators, the CDC has also published guidance on how to plan, prepare or respond to COVID-19 within schools.

EU ECDC

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control published its daily risk assessment — an overall view of the current coronavirus crisis — here. It’s full of short, tweetable facts too.
The ECDC overarching COVID-19 resource page is available here.

Local Sources

South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases published its A-Z about COVID-91, detailing the most current news in PDF forms.

Dashboards and Trackers

Our mention of Johns Hopkins’ tracker can be found here, but some may find its layout esoteric.
The University of Virginia’s uses a colour-coded heat map-style tracker.
This WHO tracker shows what other emergencies — health or natural disasters — the world is currently facing.
More trackers, for individual regions, can be found here.

Online Courses

Coursera, alongside Imperial College London, is offering a course called “Science Matters: Let’s Talk About COVID-19“. It’s free and covers topics like the scale of the outbreak, scientific explanations of said outbreak, and infectious disease modelling.
FutureLearn, with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is also offering a course called “COVID-19: Tackling the Novel Coronavirus“. It’s available for free and runs for three weeks. More about the course can be found here.
St George’s University, Grenada, is also offering a course called “An Examination of Coronavirus COVID-19“. It’s free and starts on 5 March.

We’ll update this list of COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS as more sources and courses are made available. Stay tuned !