However, the creator is being criticised for erasing Palestine from the board. Initially the dashboard listed Palestine and Israel separately.
Human rights experts quickly noticed that it removed Palestine and merged data about Covid-19 cases in the West Bank and the Gaza strip with numbers from Israel.
John Hopkins has since added a section titled “West Bank and Gaza”, but people online don’t think it is enough.
The change was first spotted by Dr Ritya Giacaman, a teacher at Birzeit University and Rania Muhareb, a legal advocate at the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq.
The pair penned a letter published by the medical journal The Lancet, pointing out the dashboard was “initially listing data recorded by the Palestinian health ministry in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under its entry for Palestine”.
Israel numbers were listed separately.
A day later, they said, “the oPt entry was removed and its figures merged with the entry for Israel”.
John Hopkins updated the dashboard on March 26 with a separate section called “West Bank and Gaza”.
Professor Lauren Gardner, the creator of the map did not respond to The New Arab’s request for comment.
There are 97 confirmed cases of coronavirus in West Bank and Gaza and one woman has died in the West Bank due to complications from the illness; Israel has reported over 3,000 cases and 12 deaths.
