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The purpose of the Coronavirus Self-Checker is to help people living in the United States make decisions about seeking appropriate medical care. The system is not intended for the diagnosis or treatment of disease or other conditions, including COVID-19. Embed the CDC widget on your library website. The widget is available in a variety of languages and format styles.

The virus causing coronavirus disease in 2019 (COVID-19) is SARS-CoV-2. It's a novel or new coronavirus that has not been previously identified. It is not the same as the coronaviruses that commonly circulate among humans and cause mild illness, like the common cold. The novel virus presents many different symptoms. Some are so mild that you may not even notice any symptoms, while others are life-threatening.

COVID-19 is an emerging, rapidly evolving situation. Take steps to help your community learn and protect itself from spreading the virus. Get the latest public health information from https://www.coronavirus.gov and https://usa.gov/coronavirus. For the latest research information from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), visit https://www.nih.gov/coronavirus.

Show the Science

"Hands-on" activities help raise awareness of how germs and viruses are transmitted. The aim of Handshake Hazard is to raise awareness of the transmission of bacteria and to show how easily germs can spread from person to person and on different surfaces. The key message is that thorough hand washing can reduce the spread of bacteria.

Posters

Ready-to-use printable posters from the CDC can help raise awareness about hand washing. Place them in highly visible public areas, such as schools, workplaces, and restrooms. They are designed for all audiences, and some are available in multiple sizes and languages.

English: 11×17 pdf icon [PDF – 523K]
Spanish: 11×17 pdf icon [PDF – 484K]
French: 11×17 pdf icon [PDF – 1.5M]
Arabic: 11×17 pdf icon [PDF – 1.5M]
Bengali: 11×17 pdf icon [PDF – 1.5M]
Chinese: 11×17 pdf icon [PDF – 1.5M]
Portuguese: 11×17 pdf icon[PDF – 1.5M]
Urdu: 11×17 pdf icon [PDF – 1.5M]
Haitian Creole: 11 x 17 pdf icon [PDF – 470K]

There's an NIH for that... and more

• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is the primary NIH organization for research on Infectious Diseases.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national health agency responsible for American lives by securing global health, ensuring domestic preparedness, eliminating disease, and ending epidemics.
• National Foundation for Infectious Diseases is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to educating the public and health care professionals about the burden, causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of infectious diseases across the lifespan.

Book

Set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution and the devastating influenza of 1918, The Murmur of Bees captures both the fate of a country in flux and the destiny of one family that has put their love, faith, and future in the unbelievable. From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him as if he were their own. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes his eyes, he can see what no one else can—visions of all that’s yet to come, both beautiful and dangerous. Followed by his protective swarm of bees and living to deliver his adoptive family from threats—both human and those of nature—Simonopio’s purpose in Linares will, in time, be divined.

The Murmer of Bees: A Novel (Translation by Simon Bruni) | Sofía Segovia | Amazon Crossing | 2019 | 476 pages | ISBN: 978-1542040495 | English edition | WorldCat

El murmullo de las abejas (Spanish paperback) | Sofía Segovia | Debolsillo | 2019 | 496 pages | ISBN: 978-6073156035 | ​Español edicion

Author

Sofía Segovia was born in Monterrey, Mexico. She studied communications at Universidad de Monterrey, thinking mistakenly that she would be a journalist. But fiction is her first love. A creative writing teacher, she has also been a ghostwriter and communications director for local political campaigns and has written several plays for local theater. Her novels include Noche de huracán (Night of the Hurricane), El murmullo de las abejas (The Murmur of Bees)--which was called the literary discovery of the year by Penguin Random House and named Novel of the Year by iTunes - and Huracán. Sofía likes to travel the world, but she loves coming home to her husband, three children, two dogs, and a cat.

Book

Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill with uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost. Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers? A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive 

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR | Winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award | Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction | Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award | Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel | A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 | An Indie Next Selection

Severance: A Novel | Ling Ma | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 2019 | 304 pages | ISBN: 978-1250214997 | WorldCat | 

Author

Ling Ma was born in Sanming, China, and grew up in Utah, Nebraska, and Kansas. She attended the University of Chicago and received an MFA from Cornell University. Prior to graduate school, she worked as a journalist and an editor. Her writing has appeared in Granta, VICEPlayboy, Chicago Reader, Ninth Letter, and other publications. A chapter of Severance received the 2015 Graywolf SLS Prize. She lives in Chicago.

Book

After a global pandemic makes public gatherings illegal and concerts impossible, except for those willing to break the law for the love of music—and for one chance at human connection. Rosemary Laws barely remembers the Before times. She spends her days in Hoodspace, helping customers order all of their goods online for drone delivery—no physical contact with humans needed. By a lucky chance, musicians and bring their concerts to everyone via virtual reality. The only catch is that she’ll have to do something she’s never done before and go out in public. Find illegal concerts and bring musicians into the limelight they deserve. But when she sees how the world could actually be, that won’t be enough.  

A Song for A New Day | Sarah Pinsker | Berkley Press | 2019 | 384 pages | ISBN: 978-1984802583

Author

Sarah Pinsker‘s Nebula and Sturgeon Award-winning short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s and F&SF, as well as numerous other magazines, anthologies, and translation markets. She is a singer/songwriter who has toured behind three albums on various independent labels. Her first collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, was released in early 2019 by Small Beer Press. A Song for a New Day is her first novel. She lives with her wife in Baltimore, Maryland.