TECH BREAK: Twitter offers data to researchers studying virus

Twitter said Wednesday it would allow researchers to access data on real-time conversations about the coronavirus pandemic to help deepen their understanding of the disease.

The project is aimed at gathering information about the spread of the illness, assessing the emergency response and communication trends during the crisis, and tackling misinformation.

"This is a unique dataset that covers many tens of millions of tweets daily," the US social network said in a blog.