Worldometer is a coronavirus statistics website that has been cited by academics, news outlets and governments. Worldometer, formerly Worldometers, is owned and operated by data company Dadax which generates revenue through online advertising. In this article, you will learn how the website works in South Africa and how you can access Coronavirus statistics.
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About Worldometer
According to their official website www.worldometers.info, the website is run by an international team of researchers, developers and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world.The website also states that they don’t have any corporate, governmental or political affiliation.
How Does Worldometer Make Money?
According to Worldometers.info, they don’t have any donors, investors or grants. They are completely an independent and self-financed through automated programmatic advertising sold in real time on multiple ad exchanges. In short, the website makes money through online advertising.
COVID-19 Pandemic
The website gained popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The website came under cyber attack in March 2020. There were attempts to hack the website. The website was hit twice. The site was first hit with a DDoS attack, and was then hacked a few days later, resulting in incorrect information being shown on its COVID-19 statistics page for approximately 20 minutes.
The hacked Worldometers coronavirus website displayed a significant rise in COVID-19 cases in Vatican City, a city-state surrounded by Rome, Italy. This caused panic among some social media users.
Is Worldometer Reliable?
Worldometer’ COVID-19 stats have also been cited by trusted news outlets including CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, Financial Times and The Washington Post. Their data has also been used by the Johns Hopkins CSSE, UK Government, the Government of Pakistan, the Government of Thailand,the Government of Sri Lanka and Government of Vietnam.
The website claims that it was voted as one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 57,000 members.
However, the site has faced criticism over transparency of ownership, lack of citations to data sources, and unreliability of its COVID-19 statistics and rankings. Coronavirus Worldometer reported on April 24 that in Spain, 18 000 people recovered from Coronavirus, compared to the Spanish government figure of 3 105 Covid-19 recoveries for that day.
Where Does Worldometer Collects its Covid-19 Data from?
According to the official website, they collect the Covid-19 data from official reports, indirectly, through local media sources when deemed reliable or directly from Government’s communication channels. Worldometer also states that they provide the source of each data update in the ‘Latest Updates’ (News) section. Timely updates are provided by a team of researchers and analyst who validate data from an ever-growing list of over 5 000 sources.
If you want to check Covid-19 figures provided by Worldometer in South Africa, click here.
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