Coronavirus: The resources we use at Examine

• For general information on COVID-19, see here.

• For research information on COVID-19, see here.

• For evidence on mask efficacy for COVID-19, see here.

• For a review of dangerous COVID-19 myths, see here.

• For a short list of reliable COVID-19 resources, please keep reading.

Disclaimer: Do not read about the coronavirus 24/7! That’s not a good strategy for physical or mental health. As researchers and scientists, we’ve found the sites listed below useful, but we’re not endorsing them. Always check multiple credible sources.

• Johns Hopkins and the World Health Organization (WHO) provide daily reports on new research, disease spread, and government responses. Johns Hopkins also collates links to articles from various news media.

• Public Health On Call (10–30 minutes per video) is a video playlist of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that provides a daily series on COVID-19-related issues.

• MedCram (5–40 minutes per video) gathers a physician’s near-daily video updates, with highly detailed science and reports on recent studies.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has a Myth busters page.

• Full Fact debunks coronavirus myths, with references.

• This page collects tweets that correct COVID-19 misinformation.

• The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine’s Oxford COVID-19 Evidence Service refers to the available evidence to answer questions such as “What trials are being done, which interventions might work?” and “Do NSAIDs worsen outcomes in acute respiratory infections (ARI)?”.

• Coronavirus is not the flu. It’s worse (7 minutes) — Major ways in which COVID-19 differs from the flu.

• Disease control expert debunks coronavirus myths (5 minutes) — A quick interview with Dr. Bharat Pankhania, an expert in communicable disease control.

• The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has two portals: the first tells you how to prepare and protect yourself and others; the second tells you what to do if you are sick or caring for somone who is.

• Apple, in cooperation with the CDC, has made available a free screening tool to “help you understand what to do next about COVID-19”. (Signup not required.)

• The International Society for Immunonutrition has put out a statement on nutrition, immunity, and COVID-19.

• The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published a comprehensive list of effective disinfectants for use against SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), so you can double-check the efficacy of your wipe/spray/etc.

• MIT ranks the coronavirus dashboards.

• The most visited map of cases is that of the Coronavirus Resource Center of Johns Hopkins University.

• CoronaWiki presents information very clearly, and you can sort the data by country, number of infected, and so on.

• 91-DIVOC offers an interactive visualization of the exponential spread of COVID-19. You can compare countries or US states.

• COVID-19 Watcher allows you to compare states, cities, or counties in the US.

• The University of Virginia has a map whose time slider allows you to see how the pandemic developed over days and weeks. This map also provides totals per US county.

• The University of Washington provides a map with timelines per country or state. Click on “Situational Heatmap” on the lower left to see how countries compare on a given date.

• This interactive chart can help us determine if, for a given country, the increase in the number of cases may be slowing down. For an explanation of how it works, see this video.

• The New York Times offers a succinct table of new US cases over time (scroll past the map to see it).

• Bing has thus far the only map displaying local COVID-19 news stories when you click on a given area.

• The coronavirus explained and what you should do (6 minutes) — Kurzgesagt (aka In a Nutshell) makes some of the best explainer videos around, on many topics, including COVIDS-19.

• Vox has produced several excellent videos, including a 6-minute introduction to COVID-19 and social distancing and a 4-minute explanation of how soap affects COVID-19 at the chemical level.

• Fighting COVID-19 with epidemiology: A Johns Hopkins teach-out (5–10 minutes per video) is a free five-hour course. Note that the title is slightly misleading in two respects: (1) a series of videos, however informative it is, does not a course make, and (2) the bulk of the videos are about epidemiology in general with no reference to COVID-19 even though usable data had become available weeks before the course was released (as it stands, the dates of the references used in some slides suggest that most videos predate COVID-19). However, by clarifying basic epidemiological concepts, these videos that can help you understand some of the COVID-19 studies that are currently coming out.

• Coronaviruses for non-virologists (1 hour and 15 minutes) — A Stanford immunologist relays important science in easy-to-understand terms.

• And if you’re tired of moving pictures, you can let FiveThirtyEight take you on a comic-strip tour of the wild world of pandemic modeling, after which you’ll understand better why scientists can’t seem to agree on what the COVID-19 death toll is likely to be.

• MDCalc is a medical reference for clinical decision tools and content, and they have a COVID-19 Resource Center.

• The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) keeps track of the latest research information here and on LitCovid, “a curated literature hub for tracking up-to-date scientific information about the 2019 novel coronavirus”.

• UpToDate has published several useful COVID-19 articles, including this one about the disease in general, this one about patient education, and this one about pregnancy issues.

• Johns Hopkins University maintains a 2019 Novel Coronavirus Research Compendium.

• Cytel provides a nifty map of coronavirus trials around the globe.

• Meditation — Headspace is offering free subscriptions to its program to US healthcare professionals, and Ten Percent Happier is doing the same for healthcare workers around the globe. You don’t need to pay to meditate, though, even if you’re not a healthcare worker, thanks to apps like Insight Timer and videos like this one, in which esteemed meditation researcher Dr. Herbert Benson shows you how to elicit the relaxation response.

• Cat and dog videos — Jun cooks delicious-looking food with and sometimes for his cute kitties. The Gone to the Snow Dogs channel is for fans of huskies. And the too cute filter leads to a variety of cuddly puppies, and some kitties too.

• With every episode of The Joy of Painting, watch and paint along Bob Ross.

• Special Books by Special Kids lets you watch interviews with people in the disability/neurodiversity community. This channel isn’t for stress relief per se, but it can help us open our minds and gain perspective on the situations of a variety of different people.

• COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund is a partnership between the World Health Organization, the United Nations Foundation, and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation.

• Partners in Health is a well-known nonprofit healthcare organization that provides healthcare to the poorest regions of the world.

• The CDC Foundation is an independent nonprofit that funds high-impact public health programs and works with CDC experts.

• Gates Philanthropy Partners funds a wide variety of Gates Foundation programs to address global public-health issues, such as COVID-19.

• The Red Cross is asking for blood donations if you’re healthy because blood for transfusions may run short in some areas.

• Nextdoor, which bills itself as the private social network for your neighborhood, can be a resource for hyperlocal news and help for the elderly — but also a source of anxiety. You may find it helpful in some situations, but be aware of the risk!

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