Between social distancing guidelines and the fact that a global pandemic truly does impact the entire world, webinars and online press briefings about COVID-19 and the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus are plentiful.
Many are incredibly helpful for veteran health/science reporters who are familiar with infectious disease reporting and for the many reporters who may not previously have reported on infectious disease or medical research and to bone up quickly.
In addition to the many webcasts specifically about the COVID-19 pandemic offered by AHCJ, check out the others below, an undoubtedly non-exhaustive list.
- SciLine, a nonprofit independent service aimed at providing accurate information and experts to journalists, has a helpful resource center for journalists that includes multiple webinars on COVID-19 topics, including social isolation and mental health, health disparities, immunity and contact tracing, testing and general coverage.
- The Infectious Disease Society of America began offering media briefings approximately twice a week on April 3. To see any of the previous briefings below, contact Camille Ahearn:
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- What’s the status of coronavirus testing in the United States? (April 7)
- Perspectives from the Front Lines: 1) Challenges of asymptomatic people in controlling spread; 2) Racial disparities in COVID-19 (April 10)
- IDSA releases COVID-19 treatment guidelines for frontline clinicians (April 14)
- What Indicators are Needed to Reopen America? (April 17)
- Addressing COVID-19 Outbreaks in Rural America (April 21)
- COVID-19 Antibody Testing: Opportunities & Challenges (April 24)
- New Guidelines: How Should Frontline Healthcare Workers Protect Themselves? (April 28)
- The Center for Health Journalism at USC Annenberg has also been running COVID-19 webinars for journalists that focus on the work of news gathering and diverse coverage during challenging restrictions on work. Check out webinars such as “Street Reporting Without the Street,” “Life and Death Decisions” and “Are You Listening to Your Community?”
- The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has hosted a handful of live webcasts, including one that featured the school’s experts on “Contact Tracing and a National Plan for Reopening” and another on “Inside Taiwan’s Response to COVID-19.” Find these and others at the JH Coronavirus Resource Center.
- Wiley, the publisher of many scientific journals, hosted “Cochrane Understanding Health Evidence—A COVID-19 Case Study” on April 27 and has made the video available at the World Federation of Science Journalists’ “Science Talks,” a collaboration with AHCJ, and on YouTube.
- The Joint Commission has a series of webinars related to the coronavirus pandemic that are aimed at healthcare providers but may be helpful to journalists as well. See the full collection here.
- The internationally focused nonprofit First Draft also has several webinars aimed specifically at journalists reporting on coronavirus, including one on privacy and security and another on ethics.
- There are no doubt other similar resources, but these are a start for taking advantage of the many video briefings available to journalists covering the pandemic.
