These coronavirus trackers can help you sort through the info overload

If you’re like me, the daily barrage of information about the progress of the coronavirus pandemic can be overwhelming. 

Between news stories, videos, and podcasts our senses are being overloaded with the latest updates on the respiratory disease. Add to the mix the long line-up of data visualizations, charts, and graphics, and it’s enough to make you want to throw every infographic into the trash. 

And I’m not the only one. 

In an April Gallup poll,  36 percent of nearly 1,700 U.S. adults surveyed said they “feel overwhelmed” by the amount of coronavirus information out there.

But instead of retreating from the plethora of (inconsistent and often inaccurate) data, I’ve identified the COVID-19 trackers that work for me. So if you’re on the hunt for pandemic information, below are some different options to suit your needs.

If you like seeing your data arranged in colorful graphs, these two sites will present the latest numbers in a different way than most typical line graphs. CREAM also makes it easy to add different countries to the chart for comparison. 

For the ANALYTICAL: The CDC

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention devotes an impressive chunk of its website to coronavirus stats and maps. I’m partial to the chart tracking new cases by day.

I’ve already explained why I prefer Bing’s COVID-19 tracker while I’m quarantined in Peru, but there are other sites that include a more global outlook like covid19reporting.info. You can search by country or view rankings based on different metrics like fatalities or new infections.

For the STATELY: Rt.live

This in-depth portal for all things coronavirus and America comes from Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. It breaks down projections by state. Rt, if you’re wondering, is the metric used to measure the reproduction rate of the virus. 

A focused look at California’s coronavirus status lives on the NYT’s website, with county-by-county breakdowns for an even more specific dataset. A state map shows where most of the cases are concentrated (i.e., Southern California).

For that NEW YORK STATE OF MIND: NYC Health

Since New York City has become the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, it’s handy to have a site that tracks its overall status. Here, the city’s health department presents various metrics regarding the pandemic in a straight-forward layout. You can even break it down by borough.

Instead of showing what’s already happened, ProPublica’s mapped out the trajectory of positive cases. It also takes into account lockdown restrictions, testing rates, and hospital bed availability. 

If you want to see the world in terms of coronavirus cases (and deaths), the go-to is the map from Johns Hopkins University. At this point, it’s mostly a lot of red covering huge swaths of continents, but it quickly shows the scope of the pandemic. Lists on the main dashboard rank countries with the most cumulative cases.

Google collected all of its tracking data to analyze where people are going, or rather, not going during the pandemic. Each country, state, and county is graphed out based on pre- and post-lockdown movement to places like grocery stores, restaurants, and outdoor spots.

Image: google