What it is

API is an open-source JavaScript service for disease statistics under GPL-3.0. It lives in the JavaScript data API ecosystem and publishes information about COVID-19, Influenza, and related disease tracking topics. The project gives users one API for global case overviews, city or region mobility data, and official government data for some countries.

The problem it solves is that COVID-19, coronavirus tracking, disease, and Influenza data are spread across government sources and outbreak reports. This project centralizes those facts behind an API, with documentation, a Postman collection, and a no-code path through databar.ai.

Key capabilities

• It exposes disease-related statistics through an API, including COVID-19 global data overviews.
• It provides city or region specific mobility data for coronavirus tracking.
• It includes current outbreak information for Influenza.
• It publishes official government data for some countries, as stated in the README.
• It supports Redis-backed local deployment, with environment configuration for REDIS_HOST and related variables.
• It offers a recommended JavaScript wrapper published on npm as novelcovid.
• It provides a Postman collection and a no-code access route through databar.ai.

Who uses it and how

• Developers use the public API or a self-hosted instance to retrieve COVID-19 and Influenza statistics for applications.
• Data analysts and dashboard builders use the Postman collection to run requests against the API.
• Non-code users access the data through the databar.ai platform instead of writing code.
• Self-hosters fork the repository, configure .env, install dependencies with npm ci, and run the service with Redis or Docker.
• Community contributors use the Discord server and the awesome-list showcase to share projects and support.

Getting started

Users can run the project locally with Redis and npm by cloning the repository, copying example.env to .env, running npm ci, and starting the service with npm run start:dev. Docker users can run npm run docker-start-dev for the local version or npm run docker-start for the published version.

When to use it — and when not to

Use this project when an open, JavaScript-based disease API is enough and when self-hosting is acceptable. The README lists no paid product it replaces, and a self-hoster must operate Redis, environment variables, and the application process or Docker setup. The README shows a four-person core team, 15 open issues, and a truncated source list, so users should check the source list and maintenance status before relying on it.