Redditors have long turned to their communities to find, discuss, and share the information relevant to their lives, whether it’s staying up to date on political events, learning about how the census works, or sharing information in the wake of natural disasters. During events that are evolving and changing quickly like the coronavirus outbreak, these communities become even more important.

Today, we’re announcing a dedicated AMA® series in response to public health concerns about coronavirus. Throughout the coming weeks, communities around Reddit will host AMA sessions with medical professionals, health organizations, and authoritative voices on coronavirus and its impact.

Expert AMA sessions confirmed at the time of writing (more to be added soon):

Congressman Jim Himes

U.S Representative of Connecticut’s 4th District

His AMA session took place on Monday, April 27th, at 3:00pm EST in r/politics:

Photo: reddit.com

Congressman Jim Himes is a representative of Connecticut’s 4th District. Representative Himes is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Chair of the Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research (STAR) Subcommittee, and Chair Emeritus of the New Democrat Coalition.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas

Los Angeles County Supervisor

His AMA session took place on Friday, April 24th, at 3:00pm EST in r/LosAngeles:

Photo: reddit.com

Supervisor Ridley-Thomas is Supervisor to the nearly 2.3 million residents in Los Angeles’s 2nd District.

ACLU

Photo: aclu.org

For nearly 100 years, the ACLU has been a guardian of liberty, working in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in the country. ACLU held their AMA session on Friday, April 17th at 3pm EST in r/coronavirus.

Participants in the AMA were:

Photo: twitter.com

Daniel Gillmor is a staff technologist at the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. Daniel works at the intersection of civil rights, civil liberties, and information technology. He has been active in discussions around tech-assisted contact tracing to help mitigate COVID-19, including the PACT group at MIT and the European initiative DP3T.

Photo: twitter.com

Jon Callas is senior technology fellow with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. He works on issues surrounding encryption, forensics, machine learning, and surveillance with the lawyers and activists at ACLU. Previously, Jon was a co-founder of PGP, Silent Circle, and Blackphone.

Mayor Eric Garcetti

Mayor of the City of Los Angeles

His AMA session took place on Monday, April 06, at 10:00am EST in r/LosAngeles:

Photo: lamayor.org

Mayor Garcetti is a fourth generation Angeleno and the 42nd Mayor of Los Angeles.

Dr. Michael Osterholm

Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota

His AMA session took place on Tuesday, March 31, at 2:30pm EST in r/coronavirus:

Photo: cidrap.umn.edu

Dr. Michael Osterholm is a medical detective that has spent his career investigating numerous infectious disease outbreaks, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). In 2001, he helped form CIDRAP at the University of Minnesota, which is actively involved in a number of infectious disease issues including COVID-19, antimicrobial resistance, influenza, and chronic wasting disease. CIDRAP also has a full-time news team that provides visitors with current, comprehensive, and authoritative information on a daily basis free of charge. In 2017, Dr. Michael Osterholm along with Dr. Mark Olshaker wrote the book Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs, detailing the world’s most pressing infectious disease threats and laying out a nine-point strategy on how to address them.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital was established to provide care to Boston’s sick, regardless of socioeconomic status—an innovative idea in 1811. In the words of our founder, John Warren, MD, “When in distress, every man becomes our neighbor.” The hospital subsequently became the first teaching hospital for Harvard University’s new medical school and have been redefining excellence in healthcare ever since. Massachusetts General Hospital remains at the forefront of medicine by fostering a culture of collaboration, pushing the boundaries of medical research, educating the brightest medical minds and maintaining an unwavering commitment to the diverse community it was created to serve. Massachusetts General Hospital held their AMA session on Friday, March 20 at 10am EST in r/coronavirus.

Their first AMA session was held on Wednesday, March 11 at 10:30am EST in r/coronavirus.

Participants in the AMA were:

Photo: massgeneral.org

Ali S. Raja, MD, MBA, MPH, FACHE is the Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. A practicing emergency physician and author of over 200 publications, his federally-funded research focuses on improving the appropriateness of resource utilization in emergency medicine.

Photo: massgeneral.org

Shuhan He MD, is an Emergency Medicine Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. He works in both the Hospital and Urgent care setting and helps to make healthcare more accessible using technology.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, the foundation is led by CEO Mark Suzman and co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. The Gates Foundation held their AMA session on Wednesday, March 18 at 12:30pm EST in r/Coronavirus:

Participants in the AMA were:

Photo: twitter.com

Photo: gatesfoundation.org

Photo: linkedin.com

Dr. Jonathan Quick, MD, MPH

Author of The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It

His AMA session took place on Wednesday, March 18, at 12pm EST in r/coronavirus:

Photo: globalhealth.org

Jonathan D. Quick is an expert in global health, pandemics and epidemic threats, and pharmaceutical policy and management. He is adjunct Professor of Global Health at DGHI. Dr. Quick previously has served as President and CEO of Management Sciences for Health (MSH), Director of Essential Drugs and Medicines Policies at the World Health Organization, resident advisor for MSH in health system development and financing in Afghanistan and Kenya, and Chief of Staff/Clinical Director in the U.S. Public Health Service, Talihina, Oklahoma. He has carried out assignments to improve public health in over 70 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. He also holds appointments at Harvard Medical School and Boston University School of Public Health. Dr. Quick is the author of The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It and more than 100 other books, chapters, and articles in leading medical journals.

The Associated Press and John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

The joint AMA session took place on Monday, March 16 at 11am EST in r/IamA:

The Associated Press is an independent, not-for-profit news cooperative headquartered in New York City. Their teams in over 100 countries tell the world’s stories, from breaking news to investigative reporting.

Since its founding in 1916, the Bloomberg School of Public Health has advanced research, education and practice to create solutions to public health problems around the world. Faculty, staff and students have helped eradicate smallpox, made water safe to drink, improved child survival, reduced the spread of HIV and uncovered the dangers of tobacco smoke.

Participants in the AMA were:

Photo: casw.org

Photo: jhsph.edu

Nsikan Akpan

Science Editor at National Geographic

His AMA session took place on Thursday, March 12, at 12pm EST in r/coronavirus.

Photo: globalhealth.org

Nsikan Akpan is a Science Editor at National Geographic covering the COVID-19 outbreak. He holds a Ph.D. in pathobiology (a field devoted to studying the basic mechanisms of disease) from Columbia University, and his academic experience includes dedicated research on infectious disease. Nsikan also served on the board of the National Association of Science Writers from 2016 to 2019.

Dr. John Torres and Dr. Joseph Fair, PhD, MSPH

The joint AMA session took place on Friday, March 6 at 12pm EST in r/coronavirus:

Participants in the AMA were:

Photo: aspenideas.org

Dr. John Torres is a medical correspondent for NBC News who also actively practices emergency medicine. He has contributed to rescue efforts out of the South Pole and in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Throughout his career, he has also made numerous humanitarian trips to Central and South America, providing medical care to children in need.

Photo: asm.org

Dr. Joseph Fair, PhD, MSPH, is a virologist and epidemiologist, who has experience battling the spread of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other infectious diseases. He has spent time studying in Wuhan, the epicenter of the current coronavirus outbreak. He is an expert in the science behind the spread, and stopping the spread, of infectious diseases.

MRIGlobal

Founded in 1944, MRIGlobal is a leader in technological and scientific research, and is currently helping to develop testing and diagnostic methods for COVID-19. A panel of researchers at MRIGlobal held their AMA on Wednesday, March 4 at 11am EST in r/IamA:

Participants in the AMA were:

Photo: mriglobal.org

Photo: bumc.bu.edu

Photo: mriglobal.org

WebMD

WebMD is a leading destination for trustworthy and timely health and medical news and information for consumers. A panel of experts from WebMD held their AMA session on Wednesday, March 4 at 12pm EST in r/coronavirus.

Participants in the AMA were:

Photo: webmd.com

Photo: commonwealthfund.org

Photo: webmd.com

Photo: harvard.edu

Photo: uhnresearch.ca

Photo: drravinakullar.com

Tom Bollyky

Director of the Global Health Program at the Council on Foreign Relations

His AMA session took place on Tuesday, March 3 at 12pm EST in r/worldnews.

Photo: oxfordliteraryfestival.org

In addition to his role at the Council on Foreign Relations, Tom Bollyky is the author of the book Plagues and the Paradox of Progress: Why the World is Getting Healthier in Worrisome Ways and the founder and managing editor of Think Global Health, an online magazine that examines the ways health shapes economies, societies, and everyday lives around the world. He held his

Additional Community Resources

During the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, Reddit featured a banner on its front page for a week directing users to an r/AskScience Megathread where they could find appropriate resources and authoritative content. Since then, the Reddit homepage has featured a banner promoting the r/Coronavirus community as a source of timely discussion and the Centers for Disease Control as a source for authoritative resources. Users will also see a pinned message on search results for terms related to Coronavirus that directs them to CDC.gov for the latest information to help stay safe and healthy.

Redditors are also staying up to date and discussing the evolution of the outbreak in communities such as:

To further help ensure that authoritative content is what redditors see first when they are looking for conversations about coronavirus, Reddit may also apply a quarantine to communities that contains hoax or misinformation content. A quarantine will remove the community from search results, warn the user that it may contain misinformation, and require an explicit opt-in.

For medically accurate information about the 2019 novel coronavirus, please also visit the resources available at the Centers for Disease Control.