When so many people are scared or feel threatened, rumors and misinformation fly wild. It's best to look up the scientific evidence (or at least scientific rationale) behind advice about slowing the spread of coronavirus and keeping healthy in this pandemic. If you can't verify the science, fact-check it. When in doubt, stick to trusted sources of information like the resources linked in this guide.
If you see something that looks to be from a trustworthy source, double check directly by searching that source's webpage. (For example, this advice did not come from someone at Stanford Hospital, as it claims.)
Unfortunately, frauds spread almost as fast as the virus, in these scary times. Watch out for the scams described in these alerts:
Nearly all of the claims that people are unable to wear a face covering when required are fraudulent. Accommodating that claim may be required under the ADA, but that does not mean facilities must allow someone into their premises without a face covering. Curbside pick-up or delivery is a totally acceptable accommodation by stores, for example.
The SantaClara County Department of Public Heath's website is updated daily on the number of cases that have tested positive in the county, the number of deaths from COVID-19, and how many people have been tested in the county.
City of San José staff are creating multilingual Flash Reports from the daily Emergency Notifications.
The Santa Clara County Public Health Department's Dashboard includes a map of cases across the county, searchable by zip code. It also provides graphs and data on demographic distribution (cases by age group, by gender, or by ethnicity /race), and on cases in long-term care facilities (assisted living facilities, nursing homes, etc.), on cases in hospitals, and on hospital capacity. California collects COVID-related data for all the counties in the state on its statistical webpages, and the SF Chronicle newspaper complies data for the extended 9-county Bay Area. These data dashboards are updated frequently, often daily.
At present, the most accurate data maps of this disease across the U. S. and worldwide comes from Johns Hopkins University.
The World Health Organization has collected a lot of useful information:
This disease spreads exponentially -- but what does that mean, actually? The Washington Post has a good animated article explaining why so many sources talks urge us to "flatten the curve", available in several other languages besides the English and Spanish versions linked here (click on the first link to find all versions).
- The numbers of medical research reports and clinical medical articles on this disease are exploding exponentially, too. These sites helpfully collect and organize the latest biomedical research information:
- Vaccines
See the page in this guide on Vaccines.
- Legal (and financial and regulatory) matters relating to the pandemic :
- Research and public policy:
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