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Gerstein Science Information Centre

COVID-19 (2019 Novel Coronavirus) Information Guide

This guide is a living document. More content will be added as new information and resources become available and as the COVID-19 situation develops. Last updated: Oct 12, 2021

About this guide

" "An info guide for researchers, healthcare professionals, and the general public - a gateway to reliable resources for your many COVID-19 questions.

Save time and get easy access to curated journal literature collections, pre-made searches in health databases, point of care tools, global datasets, helpful definitions, mythbusters, and more. Updated bi-weekly. 

(Note: This guide will not be regularly updated in during from mid-Oct/Nov 2021, but will return to its regular schedule of bi-weekly updates in Dec 2021)

What is COVID-19?  |  Where is COVID-19? 

 Tracking Variants  |  Tracking COVID-19 over time

Tracking testing  |  Tracking vaccination

(Disclaimer)

What is COVID-19?

" "COVID-19 is an illness first detected in Wuhan, China and reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) on Dec 31, 2019.  It is caused by the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (also known as SARS-CoV-2 or 2019-nCoV).  The outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 20, 2020.

On February 11 2020, the WHO announced a name for the new coronavirus disease: COVID-19.  On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the outbreak to be a pandemic, the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus.

(Source: WHO Rolling Updates on Coronavirus & Timelines: WHO's Timeline of Response)  |  Updated Aug 13, 2020)

Image source: Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 by NIAID, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Where is COVID-19?

Note: The dashboards below (for international and Canadian statistics) are live and may take a moment to fully load .

if something isn't viewable, simply refresh the page to reconnect them, or try another browser, like Chrome.

 

" "Developing a data analysis or visualization? 
Check out the Datasets section, which includes datasets, mapping and visualization resources
Check out the Creating COVID-19 Data Visualizations section for best practices on how to communicate your data more effectively

 

Live Outbreak Tracker - International

About this dashboard. Reference: Dong E, Du H, Gardner L. An interactive web-based dashboard to track COVID-19 in real time. Lancet Infect Dis; published online Feb 19, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30120-1.

Live Outbreak Tracker - Canada

About this dashboard. Developed by Jean-Paul R. Soucy & Isha Berry, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Updated daily.

Live Outbreak Tracker - Canada

About this dashboard.Provided by ESRI Canada.

Tracking Variants

Tracking COVID-19 over time

About this dashboard. Developed by Ashleigh Tuite and David Fisman, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto

Flatten.ca

Non-profit organization run by engineering, computer science, and molecular genetics students at the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, the University of New Brunswick, and McMaster University.

Includes a self-reporting tool with symptom, clinical, socio-demographic, and COVID-19 exposure/testing result data, including a heat map.

 

Tracking testing

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) – Statistics and Research - Our World in Data

Current data source is the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC); was sourced from WHO until March 18, 2020

Also includes global cases, global fatalities, and testing estimates.

Tracking vaccination

COVID-19 Vaccination Tracker - Canada

More about this dashboard. N. Little. COVID-19 Tracker Canada (2020), COVID19Tracker.ca

Compiled by Canadian volunteers, including undergraduates from the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Toronto. Data sources from provincial government data. Includes vaccine administration gap tracking.