- The coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan, China, has killed more than 200 people and infected at least 9,700.
- The virus can pass from person to person, and experts are rushing to study it and stop it from spreading further.
- A new app made by two French expats living in Taiwan tracks the spread of the virus, mapping the disease’s spread in real time and offering useful local information, broken down by region.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The death toll of the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, has killed over 200, and the virus has infected more than 9,700 people. On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared it a global health emergency.
An easily-searchable, interactive app created by two French expats living in Taiwan shows real-time updates on the coronavirus. It’s a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about the Wuhan coronavirus, pulling data from the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among other sources, creator Maxime Michel told Business Insider. Michel also said that they crosscheck that reports are corroborated by multiple sources before including them. The information matches up with the tracking dashboard created by Johns Hopkins researchers using CDC and WHO data, indicating that the app is reliable.
Michel said that they made the app during the Chinese New Year festival, because they were concerned about the epidemic and wanted a transparent way to share information after witnessing what Michel called “growing psychosis” in Taiwan.
Find the app here.
Here's how it works.
The app prominently displays current numbers of infected people, along with known deaths and recoveries. It also says when it was last updated.
The app defaults to showing the number of known infections of the coronavirus, broken down by region. Circles indicate how many infections are in a particular area, corresponding to the size of the circles. Hovering over a region will also bring up the exact number.
Alternatively, searching for an area will bring up the same information.
The app also lets you look at a map of deaths from the coronavirus...
...or a map of recoveries.
The "charts" tab gives another way of looking at the same information.
They also work as a timeline to see how the disease has spread since it started.
The charts could be a useful way to compare, for example, recoveries and deaths from the virus.
The app also links to a Google form where users can report information that's missing from the map. Michel told Business Insider that they verify any report before adding it.
The "stories" tab aggregates news tweets with updates on the virus, curated by the app's creators.
