0.106.3: Coronavirus integration (COVID-19), track the outbreak

In December 2019, an outbreak of a novel Coronavirus also called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), began in the Wuhan region of China. This virus can cause the COVID-19 disease.

This novel Coronavirus is spreading globally at a disturbing rate, which keeps everybody on top of the news. The media worldwide is covering the spread of the virus constantly, and a lot of people are tracking the number of cases in their country.

This special release adds the Coronavirus integration, allowing you to track the outbreak from within Home Assistant.

The Coronavirus integration

While having a meeting at Nabu Casa, we caught ourselves talking a lot about the state of the virus spreading in the countries we live in. Which brought us to the subject of being able to track the virus in Home Assistant itself.

So together, we started working on an integration right away. We decided to bring you a special release of Home Assistant that includes this integration.

The Coronavirus integration tracks the number of people that are confirmed with, recovered from, and deceased caused by the virus in your country, or worldwide.

The data is sourced from the Johns Hopkins University.

Screenshot of the Coronavirus integration in Home Assistant Screenshot of the Coronavirus integration in Home Assistant.

Adding the Coronavirus integration

This integration can be configured via the Home Assistant frontend.

  • Go to Configuration -> Integrations.
  • Click on the + in the bottom right corner to add a new integration.
  • Search and select the Coronavirus integration form the list.
  • Follow the instruction on screen to add the sensors. Either choose for adding world-wide sensors, or a specific set of sensors for your country.

If you want to track both world-wide and one or more countries at the same time, you can repeat the configuration process described above to add multiple instances of the integration.

Resources

For the latest information about the Coronavirus, be sure check the website of the World Health Organization. The WHO provides good information on basic protective measures you can take against the new Coronavirus.