As we’ve seen over the last few days, information, news and concern about the COVID-19 coronavirus has come at a rapid pace. It can be difficult to stay on top of the latest when it comes to the outbreak, and even harder to find information that’s relevant to you.
On top of that, misinformation and fake news is running rampant. Coupled with the sheer volume of news, it can be hard to keep up with accurate, relevant information.
With that in mind, we’ve put together a guide to accessing reliable, trustworthy information about COVID-19 both in Canada and at a more local level. Further, we strongly encourage you share these resources with people who may not know where to look for this information so they can keep up to date with the virus as well.
Federal government and other health authorities
First and foremost, the Canadian federal government maintains a detailed information page about COVID-19 on its public health services website. Not only does this webpage include detailed information about the current situation of the outbreak in Canada, but it also provides access to a variety of resources.
This includes symptoms, prevention steps, travel advice, documents for health professionals and much more.
You can access it here.
Health Canada also provides information on COVID-19. The site provides a lot of the same information as the federal government’s website.
You can access the Health Canada site here.
Update 04/04/2020: The Canadian government launched a new smartphone app with COVID-19 resources. That app is available for both iOS and Android. You can learn more about it here.
Another excellent online resource for learning about COVID-19 is the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO offers information on protecting yourself, travel advice and other resources.
You can access the WHO’s COVID-19 outbreak site here.
Local resources
CBC News has put together several pages of local resources for different areas in Canada spanning from coast to coast. All of these pages include access to a recent news story related to COVID-19, as well as a list of local closures and other important information about the virus.
Update 20/03/20: CBC News has adjusted how it will handle local news during the COVID-19 outbreak. For now, the changes only apply to TV newscasts and local digital coverage, such as the resources below, will continue as normal. However, that could change in the future. You can learn more about the changes to CBC News here.
You can access the local pages below:
- Quebec
- Newfoundland
- Prince Edward Island
- Nova Scotia
- New Brunswick
- Edmonton
- Calgary
- Saskatchewan
- British Columbia
- Toronto
- Thunder Bay
- Sudbury
- London
- Kitchener-Waterloo
- Windsor
- The North
Other resources
The Toronto Star has opened up an ongoing post with updates about COVID-19 for free digital access. The page is updated multiple times per day with the latest Canadian and other relevant COVID-19 news. It’s an excellent resource for details on breaking stories.
It’s available here.
Another excellent resource is the Johns Hopkins University global map of coronavirus cases. While in and of itself not particularly helpful (and in some cases, downright stressful to watch the spread), this map does provide insightful data about where COVID-19 has hit hardest around the world.
Further, several fake versions are floating around in the hopes of duping users and taking advantage of the situation. If you’re looking for this kind of information, please use the official map.
The map is accessible here.
MobileSyrup will continue to update this page with other COVID-19 resources as they become available. If you have any suggestions about additional resources, please let us know in the comments below.
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