JOHNSON CITY (June 2, 2020) – From tips on how to follow the latest COVID-19 statistics to information about how to stay safe and healthy, East Tennessee State University’s College of Public Health has created a clearinghouse of information related to the pandemic.
The webpage, www.etsu.edu/cph/covid19.php, contains public service announcements, useful tools and links to helpful resources. It also features a series of short videos on various aspects of COVID-19.
“The purpose of these videos is to provide accurate, but brief, information about the unfolding pandemic,” said Dr. Randy Wykoff, dean of the College of Public Health.
The videos are updated weekly. The most recent installments include a weekly update of the pandemic and a video titled “COVID-19 and the Appalachian Highlands.” The site also hosts longer videos and conference recordings.
Visitors to the site can also link to the Tennessee COVID-19 County Status map, which was created by the Geoinformatics and Disaster Science (GADS) Lab in ETSU’s Department of Geosciences, in cooperation with faculty in the ETSU College of Public Health.
This map is updated daily with the number of cases and deaths reported by county, as well as the totals of tests performed and recoveries, based on information from the Tennessee Department of Health. This dashboard also provides other location-based resources, including hospitals, urgent care facilities and nursing homes, as well as links to assessment sites, regional statistics, and COVID-19 information and resources.
In addition, the GADS Lab has created a corresponding Central Blue Ridge COVID-19 Tracking dashboard that covers not only the counties of Northeast Tennessee but also the neighboring counties of Western North Carolina and Southwest Virginia.
These resources are useful for state and local health and government officials, emergency managers and the general public, according to Andrew Joyner, GADS Lab director and associate professor in the Department of Geosciences. The information provided is continually evolving based on feedback from those on the front lines.
“In the big picture, ETSU has a lot of resources to offer the community in good times and bad times, and this is an example of that,” Joyner said.