If you’ve ever consulted a COVID-19 hot-spot map or noted the infection figures on the cable news crawl, you may have the experts at Johns Hopkins University to thank. Its Coronavirus Resource Center is the de facto clearinghouse for pandemic stats. The center’s data has been downloaded billions of times, helping governments to decide where to dispatch resources and when to reopen—and individuals to suss out the safety of hosting a socially distant backyard barbecue. —Marjorie Korn
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