WaatoSafe: sources and methodology

We publish health alerts and product recalls from authorities in Mexico (COFEPRIS, the Secretaría de Salud, the Dirección General de Epidemiología, the Jalisco health department and PROFECO) and in the United States (FDA, CDC and USDA-FSIS).

Before publishing a notice, our team reads it on the authority's own site, keeps its original wording without changing its meaning, records when it was published, which area it applies to (the whole country, a state, a metro area or a municipality) and how long it applies, and always links the original document. When the authority publishes an update, the new notice replaces the old one.

If we don't have a human-reviewed version in your language, we show the notice in its original language and say so: we never machine-translate an official notice.

This selection isn't exhaustive: authorities publish more notices than we show. The authority's notice always takes precedence over our summary.

We use the open dengue data published by the Dirección General de Epidemiología (DGE) of Mexico's Secretaría de Salud, for the state of Jalisco and the municipalities of the Guadalajara metropolitan area.

We show the year's confirmed cases and the confirmed and probable cases with symptom onset in the 4 weeks ending on the data date. Counts from 1 to 4 are shown as a range to protect privacy.

Figures are by each case's municipality of residence, not necessarily where the infection happened, and they're preliminary: probable cases can be confirmed or ruled out.

We check the source once a day. Next to each figure we show the data date, when it was updated on Waatokok and when we last checked, and we say so when the source hasn't been updated for a while. Other official sources may publish different figures because they use another cut-off date or definition.

We show earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or higher recorded by the USGS in Mexico and the Gulf of California over the last 7 days. The list updates every few minutes.

These are earthquakes that have already happened: this isn't an earthquake early warning or a forecast. For the seismic alert, follow Civil Protection guidance.

Each earthquake says whether its magnitude has been reviewed by the USGS or is a preliminary automatic estimate that may change. “Your area” lists earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or higher within 150 km of your area, or 5.5 or higher within 300 km. That's a proximity rule: it doesn't mean the earthquake was felt or caused damage.

USGS information is in the public domain.

We show the rain and tropical-cyclone warnings in effect from Mexico's National Weather Service (SMN, part of Conagua), in its official alert format. We check the source every few minutes.

Each warning keeps the SMN's original text, its severity, the area it covers (a polygon) and its start and end times. A warning stops showing as soon as it expires, is updated or is cancelled.

To decide whether a warning applies to your area, we compare its polygon with your municipality. If we only know your state, the warning appears as “in parts of” that state, without claiming it affects your city.

A rain warning is a forecast: it doesn't confirm flooding, and WaatoSafe doesn't report on flooding. SMN warnings are published under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

Community activity appears only in aggregate by area: an area shows up only with at least 11 valid reports within 14 days and at least 20,000 residents. Individual reports, exact counts, establishments and precise locations are never shown.

Community activity isn't officially confirmed, and it's always shown separately from official information.

Community reports aren't open to the public yet.

The map shows information for the areas we cover: today, Jalisco (the Guadalajara metro area) and Anchorage, Alaska, as a test area. Earthquakes and SMN warnings cover all of Mexico. WaatoSafe doesn't cover flooding or mobility & infrastructure: we have no official source connected for those topics.

On earthquakes and weather warnings, “View on map” moves the map to that event, and “Back to my area” returns it to where you were.

To decide what applies to you, we use your approximate state (based on your network, never stored) or the location you choose (country, state and, optionally, city). On the map you can share your device's location if you decide to: it's read once and used only on your device. The Privacy Policy has the details.

Map data: Protomaps and OpenStreetMap contributors, boundaries from INEGI (data transformed) and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Every item shows its source and date. If a source doesn't respond, we say so (“we couldn't reach the source”) instead of showing that there are no notices. If information may be out of date, we say that too.

Our team can temporarily pause an automatic source if it spots a problem; WaatoSafe then says the source is paused.

WaatoSafe isn't exhaustive or real-time, and it doesn't cover every hazard or every area. A notice not appearing doesn't mean there isn't one.