More than three million cases of coronavirus have now been registered in 185 countries worldwide, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University. So how does the US university collect this data?
The figures provided by Johns Hopkins is collated from several sources, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, government health departments from around the world, local media reports and a large online community of healthcare professionals.
The data, which is displayed in an online map, is updated “in near real time throughout the day” both automatically and by manual input, the university says.
Developed by Prof Lauren Gardner, a civil and systems engineering professor at Johns Hopkins, the map – or dashboard – was first shared online on 22 January. It was initially built and maintained with the help of a graduate student, Ensheng Dong, but later, as the virus spread, required the help of others at the university.
Numerous media outlets cite the dashboard in their reporting and it is one of the sources used by the BBC. Since it was made available in January, the university says that daily requests for its data have grown to more than a billion.
Source: bbc.com
