Understanding COVID-19 and its spread
Resources about the disease
Coronavirus refers to a family of viruses. COVID-19 – or Coronavirus Disease – is the infectious disease caused by a newly discovered type of coronavirus.
As the World Health Organization (WHO) has set out, most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. Older people, and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness.
Common symptoms include fever, tiredness and a dry cough. Other symptoms include shortness of breath, aches and pains, sore throat, and very few people will report diarrhoea, nausea or a runny nose.
The best way to prevent and slow down transmission is be well informed about the COVID-19 virus, the disease it causes and how it spreads. The COVID-19 virus spreads primarily through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
To find out more about the virus, see the WHO’s research pages, or the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the virus prepared by the WHO. You may also wish to sign up to the WHO’s WhatsApp alert in order to receive trustworthy information directly to your phone.
Resources about latest cases
National authorities around the world are working to gather information about numbers of tests, infections and consequences. You should turn first to your national authorities for this information, as they should have the most recent data.
At the global level, the WHO is releasing daily updates on the situation. This information is used to build the WHO’s dashboard on cases.
The Centre for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University is also maintaining a global map live, including figures on numbers of recovered patients. This is being used regularly in media reporting.
