Frequently Asked Questions

Updated on Feb 22, 2022

We are drawing this information from the websites of a variety of trustworthy organizations (e.g. World Health Organization, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Massachusetts State Department of Public Health, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, the Boston Public Health Commission and the Cleveland Clinic among others). Some of this language is used word for word, and other language is paraphrased. We would like to acknowledge the hard work of these organizations in compiling this information.

Important terms:

WHO: World Health Organization

CDC: United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

COVID-19: COVID-19 is a new disease, caused by a novel (or new) coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that has not previously been seen in humans. There are many types of human coronaviruses including some that commonly cause mild upper-respiratory tract (sinuses, nasal passages, pharynx and larynx) illnesses. In COVID-19, ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ for ‘virus,’  ‘D’ for ‘disease’ and ‘19’ for ‘2019.’

For Vaccine FAQs- click here.


Please follow the links below for more information:

Boston Public Health Commission

Cleveland Clinic

CDC FAQs

CDC How it Spreads

CDC Pregnancy and Breastfeeding

Massachusetts Department of Public Health

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India

World Health Organization (WHO) FAQs

CDC Symptom Description and Symptom Checker


This material was curated by Viswanath Lab of Harvard Chan School of Public Health and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) with the help of the Health Communication Core  of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC). These are  not the official views of Harvard Chan  or DFCI. For any questions, comments or suggestions reach out to rpinnamaneni@hsph.harvard.edu.