CORONAVIRUS – THE SCIENCE EXPLAINED provides authoritative and up-to-date explanations of the scientific evidence behind the COVID-19 pandemic.
Developed with the support of the UK Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, and Chief Medical Adviser, Professor Chris Whitty, the articles have been curated by a team of research scientists working in coronavirus, virus and relevant related fields at the Universities of Oxford, Glasgow and Edinburgh, Imperial College London, King’s College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Topics include evidence and facts about the virus, information on how people are infected and the treatment options. The site will start small and the intention is to rapidly populate it with further articles.
Content is tailored for non-scientists and links to published and pre-published scientific papers.
Edited by Professor Chris Dye, a biologist, epidemiologist and public health specialist at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, the website will also help to counteract web disinformation and pseudoscience about the virus.
The website was made possible thanks to support from the European Bioinformatics Institute which is part of EMBL, Europe's flagship laboratory for the life sciences. The Government Office for Science, Department of Health and Social Care, the National Institute for Health Research and Oxford Martin School are also all supporting this initiative.
UKRI Chief Executive Sir Mark Walport said: “In these unprecedented times, it’s vital that people have ready access to up to date scientific information and evidence.
“The Coronavirus: The Science Explained website will be a valuable resource and we’re enormously grateful to all of our partners across Government and the research and innovation community for their support of this initiative.”