During the COVID-19 pandemic, live maps were the easiest way to follow confirmed cases around the world. On this page you find the Johns Hopkins University dashboard, the ncov2019.live tracker and two more alternatives.
Update (October 2026): The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center stopped collecting and reporting global COVID-19 data on March 10, 2023. Its dashboard now shows the final archived numbers. For current official data, use the World Health Organization COVID-19 dashboard.
In this article
Live Map 1: Johns Hopkins University (CSSE) Dashboard
Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)
Special thanks to Johns Hopkins University and the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering. This very helpful dashboard made it possible to track cases live, and it was a huge piece of work. Visit their websites for more information: Johns Hopkins University and https://coronavirus.jhu.edu.
Reference: Dong E, Du H, Gardner L. An interactive web-based dashboard to track COVID-19 in real time. Lancet Infect Dis 2020; published online Feb 19.
Who started the dashboard?
Professor Lauren Gardner, a civil and systems engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, built the dashboard with her graduate student, Ensheng Dong. It was maintained at the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering, with technical support from Esri and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. At the time, Gardner was co-director of the CSSE.
Live Map 2: ncov2019.live
Avi Schiffmann, then a junior at Mercer Island High School in the Running Start program at Bellevue College, started working on his coronavirus information website, ncov2019.live, in early January 2020. At that time there were fewer than 1,000 confirmed cases, and the virus had not yet spread outside China.
The site’s simple homepage showed quick facts that were updated every 10 minutes, including total confirmed cases, total deaths, the number of countries infected and more. One column listed the outbreak numbers for provinces and cities in China, and another column showed the data for other countries. An update on the site said that a new column would list individual U.S. states, and that the site would be translated into more than 10 languages.
The site ran a script that automatically collected the latest data from a number of well-sourced sites. It attracted more than 2 million unique visitors and up to 300,000 returning visitors each day, setting new records for the site over those two weeks. Read the full story, with thanks to GeekWire.
Other Alternatives
- Live Map 3: the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) map by HealthMap.
- Live Map 4: “Mapping the spread of COVID-19”, an Esri StoryMap.
COVID-19 Live Map 3 COVID-19 Live Map 4
These maps were made in 2020. For up-to-date official numbers, check the WHO dashboard linked at the top of this page.
