Home How-To Guides How To Get Official Information On Coronavirus (COVID-19) In India?

How-To Guides

How To Get Official Information On Coronavirus (COVID-19) In India?

Mar 28, 2020

While we already have 700+ active COVID-19 cases (at the time of writing this) across the country, there’s a lot of rumors, and spam messages that are potentially causing unnecessary panic.

I know that prevention is better than a cure.

But, “panic” causes a lot of distress.

So, it’s better to stay at home, wash your hands, practice social distancing, and follow the official sources for information related to COVID-19.

To make things easier, I’ve compiled a list of official or credible sources that you can easily follow to stay up-to-date on COVID-19 in India.

Note: You will also find the list of helpline numbers for every state & union territories across India at the bottom of this article.

1. MyGov Portal

An official website to track the number of active COVID-19 cases and some relevant news.

MyGov Portal

2. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

It is essentially the same portal to track the official number of reported COVID-19 cases. So, you can check any of these two websites to stay informed.

Ministry of Health & Family Welfare

3. MyGov Corona Newsdesk Telegram Channel

If you’re willing to use Telegram messenger (which is similar to WhatsApp), you can install it from the Play Store or the App Store and join the official channel for all announcements regarding Coronavirus.

You join the channel by clicking on this link: https://t.me/MyGovCoronaNewsdesk

4. MyGov Corona Hub On Facebook Messenger

If you’re using Facebook messenger, it’s easy to get help and information using the official chatbot.

Just visit the link here to get started: m.me/MyGovIndia?text=Hi

5. MyGov Corona Helpdesk On WhatsApp

There’s also an official useful chatbot to get information and help on WhatsApp.

You need to click on this to get started: https://wa.me/919013151515?text=Hi

6. Twitter Handles To Follow

If you’re on Twitter or could sign up for it now. Here are some official sources for quick information.

You just need to follow them or turn on notifications to get notified of their tweets.

PIB (Press Information Bureau) India English (Official)
PIB India Hindi (Official)
DD News English (Official)
DD News Hindi (Official)
ANI (Asian News International)
Press Trust of India

7. For International News & Stats

You don’t need to endlessly search for news channels or websites. You just need a few credible sources to keep track of what’s happening worldwide.

You can start using the global COVID-19 tracker(Map) to get the latest official number of COVID-19 cases.

Worldometers is also a great source for the latest information to track the number of cases and the details associated.

Follow QuickTake by Bloomberg On Twitter Or Instagram as a trusted International media source. Here are the links for it:

8. Community-powered Telegram Group

It is worth noting that there are some key individuals like Nirmal Sarkar who’ve taken the effort to create some community-powered Telegram groups to help people to get all the relevant information in one place.

Even though this isn’t directly an official source – it’s a great way to follow multiple sources, you can find this community-powered Telegram channel useful.

You can join the channel here: https://t.me/covidin

You can also join their community discussion Telegram group to talk about the latest updates here: https://t.me/covchat

9. Community-powered Telegram Bot

How about a Telegram bot?

Yeah, there’s a quite useful Telegram bot “COVID-19 Bharat Bot” created by Divaksh Jain that provides you information related to COVID-19 using a crowdsourced database.

Basically, it utilizes credible media sources and government portals to give you the latest data.

You can start using the bot by clicking here: https://t.me/COVID19BharatBot

10. ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) Report

ICMR posts daily updates and information related to COVID-19. It also includes the information for the private and government laboratories with testing facilities for COVID-19.

Don’t worry, it’s not just for medical professionals, the information should come in handy for everyone!

Here are some links for you to check:

ICMR Report

11. Helpline Numbers

Source: Extracted from the official PDF file available on the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare website.

Bihar | Chhattisgarh | Goa | Gujarat | Himachal Pradesh | Jharkhand | Karnataka | Madhya Pradesh | Punjab | Odisha | Sikkim | Telengana | Uttarakhand | Lakshadweep | Puducherry | Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu

For all the locations mentioned above, call: 104