Coronavirus COVID19 API is giving free access to live Corona Virus data to developers. If you want to build some dashboard or apps to show the impact of the virus or report then this will be useful. Also, this is helpful in creating the reports that you use in your work. With this API, you can query the virus data for almost any country. It returns a JSON response with parameters like a number of new confirmed infections, new deaths, total deaths, newly recovered, and total recovered people. You can just make the API call in the specific syntax and then you can simply use cURL or use the browser to get data.
A couple of days back, I wrote about a simple script to show desktop notifications for Corona Virus. That script was using scarping under the hood to get the virus report. But with API like this, the developers won’t have to do that. Just make a simple API request as specified in the API docs and then simply get the data that your application will use. There are numerous uses of this Covid19 API and you are free to use it anyway. Right now there isn’t even an authentication system or request limits, so you can use it very easily. However, just because it is free, please do not abuse it or otherwise, the endpoints will be shut down or the dev team behind this will add limits to it.
How to Access Live Corona Virus Data with this Free Covid19 API?
Use this simple Coronavirus Covid19 API in the same way you use other APIs. You need a command-line HTTP client such as cURL or Wget. You just need to construct an API call URL and then you are good to go. The very simple example of making an API request is to get a summary of the Corona Virus data of all countries. To get that in JSON, you use the following command.
curl --location --request GET 'https://api.covid19api.com/summary'You can also just paste the main URL in the address bar of your browser to see the JSON response. You can see the below screenshot to see it in action. Additionally, you can use JSONView Chrome extension to format JSON.
To get the details for a specific country, you use the following cURL command in the terminal.
curl --location --request GET 'https://api.covid19api.com/live/country/india/status/confirmed'
This way, you can make the API calls and get the Corona Virus data to use in your applications. Once, you have the JSON data then you are free to do whatever you want with it.
Final words:
If you are looking for a free API to get the Corona Virus data then you just give a try to this API I have mentioned here. If you have experience in working with APIs, then you can use it via any programming language. I liked the simplicity of the API as it covers all the parameters that a developer might need. So, just go ahead give the API docs a quick read and then start using it for good.
