Oct 2023: Additional updates against no internet access _ ver 2.1.3.3
	  Minor update to fix errors when URL is not accessible _ ver 2.1.3.2

May 2023: Minor updates to refs./urls in documentation _ ver 2.1.3.1

Aug 2022: Minor bug fix in growth.rate() fn _ ver 2.1.3
		- adjust to consider arithmetic "corner" cases

Apr 2022: Data source update _ ver 2.1.2
		- updating data source for Open Data Toronto

Sept/Apr 2021: Bugs fixes _ ver 2.1.1
		- pandemics.data (for both historical pandemics and vaccines records): live update of COVID-19 Death.toll cases when loading the datasets
		- fix bug in checkGeoLoc and select.per.loc, affecting continents/countries mismatch for some locations/continents, with side-effects on dashboard and totals.plt, ... 
		- extra protection for report.summary() fn to avoid crashes due to incomplete datasets

Feb/Mar 2021: More data sources added _ ver 2.1
		- Vaccination data, from OWID
		- Testing data, from OWID
		- pandemics data, from Visual Capitalist infographics
		- adding flags for having conditional testing (_in unit testing module_)

Oct 2020: Adding more data sources _ ver 2.01 (unreleased)
		- New covid19.Toronto_OD.data fn, to obtain data from Open Data Toronto
		- New covid19.Canada.data fn, to obtain data from Health Canada

Sept 2020:  Several new features added _ ver 2
		- New dashboard interface, via covid19Explorer fn
		- local data restructured to be stored in RDS format instead of CVS
		- local fasta genomics data, only available on development version due to CRAN restrictions in packages' size

Aug. 2020:  Several new features added _ ver 1.2
		- New genomic functions supporting the retrieval of nucleotides, proteins, FASTA and phylogenetic tree from NCBI.
		- Adding a new function, sweep.SIR.models for generating a series of models based on a range for the starting date t0
		- Added more checks for integrity/consistency checks: critical columns, quantifiable columns, etc.
		- Added a nullify.data fn, for removing inconsistent/incomplete entries in the data
		- Added a new estimateRRs fn, for computing rolling estimates for fatality and recovery rates


Jul 2020:  Several new features and bugs fixes _ ver 1.1.1
		- added new geographical categories to select data per continents, implemented via geographicalRegions() fn
		- added tests cases
		- geneate.SIR.model()/plt.SIR.model(): added plotting of time derivatives and "force of infection"
		- covid19.Toronto.data(): updated to handle new format of the data, 3 categories in columns
		- covid19.Toronto.data(): can return original data as reported by the city in google-docs in a list format
		- covid19.Toronto.data(): improved reading of Toronto data to protect possible variations in the reported data
		- added new argument 'interactive.display' for functions that generate interactive figures, eg. live.map(), totals.plt(), plt.SIR.model(), itrends(); for turning on/off the display of the figure
		- fixed a few bugs in itrends: failing when not arguments or only one geo.locn, were specified
		- fixed data integrity functions not being exported


May 2020:  Several new features _ ver 1.1
		- added integrity and consistency check fns --integrity.check/consistency.check/data.checks--
		- added "geo.loc" argument for report.summary() fn
		- added a couple of additional arguments to allow for customization of live.map()
		- added new options and function to retrieve US specific TimeSeries datasets: "ts-confirmed-us" and "ts-deaths-us" & covid19.US.data()
		- added new option and function to retrieve "Toronto" data: "ts-Toronto" & covid19.Toronto.data()
		- added more protection to growth.rate() and confidence bands drawing, to avoid failing plots with missing or inconsistency data
		- added trend functions: single.trend(), mtrends() and itrends()


April 2020:  A couple of bugs fixed, affecting the growth.rate() and plot.SIR.model() fns; few more features added to report.summary() and totals.plt() _ ver 1.0.1


March 2020:  Includes data access, basic analysis and interactive plotting functions _ ver 1.0