Coverage of The Pandemic With Resources and Information fromAround The World

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Structure of the coronavirus. Image from Wikimedia Commons CC-BY 3.0

Source: Global Voices

There is little doubt that late 2019 will be remembered in world history as the date when COVID-19, the disease caused by a previously unknown virus, brought an unprecedented challenge to human societies and reshaped global relations. Since then, COVID-19 continues to dominate world news and capture the attention of citizens and governments alike. This is a testimony to the March 11 decision by the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare COVID-19 a pandemic. A pandemic can be defined as an epidemic that spreads across the world much faster than expected and affects people who do do not immunity to fight it.

As an international network of reporters present across the world and speaking over 100 languages, Global Voices rose to the occasion in January 2020 and started to report on the issue in China, rapidly expanding coverage to address the various consequences of COVID-19. Given the scale and scope of the pandemic, we are now organizing our coverage based on regions (with the most recent story at the top of each section) for easier navigation.

Our goal is to present the various ways in which COVID-19 affects human and digital rights, freedom of expression, causes more mis- and disinformation, and challenges existing systems of media ecology, public health, governance, politics, global economy – from a local perspective, while keeping in mind our global readership. In this effort, we remain particularly vigilant to protect the safety and well-being of individuals and communities unfairly targeted because of a real or perceived association with COVID-19, as well as our reporters.

Global impact

World Health Organization officials criticized for ‘slow response’ and ‘pro-China’ bias as COVID-19 spreads across the world

Central and Eastern Europe

Czech Republic introduces drastic measures to deter spread of COVID-19 

Churches in Greece and North Macedonia refuse to modify rituals conducive to the spread of COVID-19 

Coronavirus-related xenophobia spreads to Central and Eastern Europe

East Asia and Oceania

Japan resurrects ‘Amabie’, an old supernatural creature to fight COVID-19  

China government spokesperson suggests on Twitter that COVID-19 may have originated in the United States

Does Singapore's ‘top-down’ approach’ to handling COVID-19 deserve all the praise it's been getting?

Campaign urging Wuhan residents to show gratitude to the Communist Party leadership in fighting COVID-19 backfires

How Chinese social media platforms control information on COVID-19 

China censors report of how China authorities hid COVID-19 genome sequence test result for 14 days

Battered by criticism, Abe government scrambles to save Japan from COVID-19

Chinese censorship demonstrates it can afford the cost of the death of media 

Japan edges ever closer to a COVID-19 epidemic

China travel ban heightens threats to Australia's trade, tourism and education sectors

Positive energy floods Chinese social media as over 60,000 infected with COVID 2019

Is the coronavirus epidemic China's ‘Chernobyl moment'?

#OustDuterte trends as Filipinos criticize the government's response to the coronavirus 

View our extensive coverage of the early stages of COVID-19 in China and East Asia here.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Trinidad & Tobago fight against COVID-19 puts emphasis on ‘personal responsibility’

New COVID-19 disaster area order places a Jamaica under quarantine, but ‘not under curfew’

With no officially confirmed cases, El Salvador locks itself down to prevent COVID-19

Trinidad & Tobago clamps down as two cases of COVID-19 are confirmed

Life in the times of COVID-19: Jamaicans adjust their lifestyle as country records second case

Caribbean tourism threatened by the region's first cases of COVID-19 

A rash of ‘travel bans’ as the Caribbean gets serious about coronavirus

South Asia

Nepal postpones international events as fear of COVID-19 intensifies 

Bhutan deals with its first COVID-19 case by temporarily shutting down borders  

Pakistani students under lockdown in Wuhan are appealing for assistance

Sub-Saharan Africa

COVID-19 in Africa: ‘Unprecedented levels of mobilization’ as nations brace for pandemic

France24 headline about COVID-19 in Africa irks citizens as racist

An Italian national is the index case patient of COVID-19 disease in Nigeria

Here are useful sources of information, some regularly updated, to follow the impact of COVID-19: 

A map from Johns Hopkins University for a visual overview of the global spread of COVID-19. The BBC also provides a visual guide to the pandemic.

For a proper use of terms associated with COVID-19, here is a comprehensive online dictionary.

Here is a comprehensive explainer by the BBC of COVID-19 symptoms and how to protect oneself. For more, there is also an online course to understand COVID-19.