Teenager Creates Coronavirus Case Tracking Website Over Christmas Break Now Has Millions of Global Views
Stocksnap

A website that tracks the coronavirus has transformed into a vital resource for many people all over the world, says an article. The website aims to provide updated numbers of the coronavirus pandemic. The URL of the helpful website is nCoV2019.live.

Also read: COVID-19 Has Worsened, Says Health Officials

Content of the Website

Currently, the website has a record of millions of people from different parts of the world. The website includes an updated record of the total deaths. Also, the website has a record of the local and global records of the total coronavirus cases. Additionally, it has an interactive map and information about the deadly virus. Moreover, information about the coronavirus from the website is also available through a Twitter feed.

The website's content is updated more or less every minute. The websites collect information originating from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and other sources.

The Teenager behind the Website

The teenager behind the useful website is Avi Schiffmann, a 17-year old, junior high student at Mercer Island. The website had started operating in the latter part of December. It was already operating before the deadly coronavirus has spread outside the borders of mainland China.

Schiffmann revealed in an interview that his school had paused operations 1.5 to 2 months ago due to the coronavirus epidemic. The cancellation of classes due to the coronavirus outbreak had allowed the teenager to have more time to update and make his helpful website operate continuously. This gave him additional hours to provide reliable and updated information to different parts of the world through the World Wide Web.

Starting the Website

According to Schiffmann, he started working on the website during Christmas of 2019.

Primarily, the website was created to provide straight information and data on a website with fewer ads. He wanted to make it easier for people to view the facts about the global coronavirus epidemic.

He said that the website also lets you easily view quick facts about the coronavirus epidemic without the distractions of many ads.

The information on the website can allow visitors to view quick facts about the coronavirus epidemic in individual nations, says Schiffmann. He added that the current version of the website has the option to view quick facts about every state in the United States of America.

Making it Easier for Viewers

Before his website, one way to view reliable facts about the coronavirus epidemic included a lot of steps. These steps include a need to visit government websites where a PDF needs to be downloaded. Another issue with the information from these PDF files is that the information is not updated unlike how his website updates its content almost every minute.

Inspired by the Widespread Misinformation and His Eagerness to Learn and Improve

Schiffmann started the website with a few thousand cases of the coronavirus, all of them were only in Wuhan City, China during that time. However, he noticed that it was difficult to find a reliable and updated source of information about the virus. He saw a lot of fake news and misinformation about the deadly virus. This thought had inspired him to make the website as a central hub of information about the coronavirus epidemic.

Schiffmann has a decade worth of programming involvement and months-long web development experience. Another inspiration for making the website was his desire to learn more and improve his web development skills. He said that searching online about things he did not know about web development helped him successfully build the website.