ATLANTA, March 25, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- In this challenging time when more than one in four Americans are under "shelter-in-place" orders¹, IBM (NYSE: IBM) is offering free tools to track reported COVID-19 cases near you and help you stay informed.

Offered through The Weather Channel app, weather.com, and an online dashboard, this information is designed to help provide the latest details currently available from various official sources to people and businesses so they can access it easily on their computers or smartphones.

"As the coronavirus causes uncertainty in our daily lives, we are all looking for data to help us make more informed decisions and check on our family and friends in different areas. With that in mind, we feel it's critical to provide the most trusted information currently available to help people stay informed on the reach of COVID-19," said Cameron Clayton, general manager of IBM's The Weather Company. "The Weather Channel is now providing COVID-19 data – so you can see why social distancing matters in your community and why it's important to heed instructions from your local, state and national resources."

Citizens, researchers and even government officials can use the data-rich tools to get currently available information from various official sources about the reach of the coronavirus, down to a county level in the United States.

The tools, which run on the IBM public cloud, use IBM Watson to access and analyze data from the World Health Organization and multiple national, state and local governments. This data will be more localized than some other resources currently available – drilling down to the county level in the United States, where available.

Visit weather.com/coronavirus or The Weather Channel app on iOS or Android to see the following: 

• An AI-enhanced interactive "Incidents Map" of COVID-19 data and stats, including confirmed cases and more by U.S. state and by county, where available. 
• A trend graph by state in the U.S. to view recent statistics, as well as data over time. 
• Starting with U.S. locations and with additional global data anticipated to follow shortly, the tool will provide trend visualization, interactive mapping, news and information to help track the pandemic.
• The latest news and videos related to coronavirus from The Weather Channel editorial team. 
• Additional details such as available public health information, patient education materials, locations of key healthcare clinics and testing centers and more, are anticipated to be added as available. 

In addition, an interactive dashboard driven by IBM Watson and built on IBM Cognos Analytics is designed to help users such as data scientists, researchers, media organizations and more conduct a deeper analysis and filtering of regional data. Available global data includes confirmed cases, recoveries where available and more, and users can drill down to the country, region, state and county level as needed to get further insights. This aggregated data could potentially help others collect insights and show how cases are trending over time.

For more information about IBM efforts around COVID-19, visit https://www.ibm.com/covid19 and https://newsroom.ibm.com/covid-19.

For more information about The Weather Company, an IBM Business, visit https://newsroom.ibm.com/the-weather-company. For more on IBM, visit IBM.com. 

Statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.

Media contact:
Melissa Medori, IBM media relations
mmedori@us.ibm.com

¹ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/21/coronavirus-lockdown-orders-shelter-place-stay-home-state-list/2891193001/

SOURCE IBM

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