Hollis Outbreak Watch

Reports use public data only, taken at face value, with conflicts flagged and gaps marked "not reported".

No politics in reports, but frank, sourced statements about shortfalls in response, readiness or funding.

The short brief must stand alone, at 8 pages or fewer, for readers who see only that one document, and every report answers whether the outbreak is contained in its home region or spreading beyond it.

Keep the reader's messages short and plain, and define every abbreviation on first use.

Use for every outbreak-watch report (morning full report, brief, evening update, weekly summary): the data rules, Rt, estimate, front matter, tone and disclaimer.

Use when drawing the charts, early warning panel and hotspot map for an outbreak-watch report, or keeping their data files.

Use when adapting the outbreak watch to another outbreak (mpox, cholera, bird flu) or another topic (droughts, hurricanes, prices).

Use in the first conversation after this outbreak-watch template is imported, to set up the watch with its new owner.

Each morning, after the official bulletin usually posts, builds the full report and the stand-alone brief as PDFs.

Each evening, writes a 1-2 page update on what changed since the morning report.

Once a week, summarizes the past 7 days of the watch with the week's charts and outlook.