Covid 19 Wuhan death in China was first reported in January, 2020 as a world news. A graduate student, Ensheng Dong at John Hopkins University got interested in the news. He went next day (January 22) to his professor, Loren Gardner at its Center for Systems Science and Engineering. The professor has been involved in epidemic of Zika and Measles.
Gardner talked to Scienceinsider on April 3, 2020 in an interview that when the group started collecting data from all over the world, they were only six people. Now they have researcher all over the world. These researchers track data 24 hours a day. Their data is used by United States Center for Disease Control, WHO and countless other outlets.
Among other resources, they closely follow a media aggregator site in the United States named 1point3Acres. John Hopkins has created a dash board system now. Its sources run into hundreds from WHO data to news website stories as well as social media reports.
Now the website, coronavirus.jhu.edu gets a billion hits every day. It is most authentic source of information globally for minute to minute and country to country data exposure. University dashboard is automatically updated. They work three shifts on a 24-hour basis for data curation.
Data has to be cross checked for validity, reference and sources of data are thoroughly examined before entering into the system
It all started with humble curiosity of a graduate student, Mr. Dong who is also a Chinese.
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