COVID-19: Indian govt to bring CoWin-20, Corona Kavach apps soon to mitigate community spread
State-run Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MietY) is testing a novel application Corona Kavach, which aims to protect Indian citizens from getting infected by COVID-19.
As of now, most of the 700 odd people with coronavirus are foreign returned and the rest of them have contracted from the immediate family member or a colleague or a fellow passenger. There is no official report of community spread like Patient 31 in South Korea, who by the way infected hundreds in a Church.
Fortunately, South Korea has managed to contain the spread. Now, India is betting on the Corona Kavach (meaning Shield) app, similar to Singapore's TraceTogether, to mitigate the community spread.
The Corona Kavach is said to make use of the user's mobile number, location data (via GPS), and match the traveling history with that of the Coronavirus positive patients, documented by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) data in the backend.
Also, Corona Kavach with the use of Bluetooth will be able to warn the user not to venture out to a particular location, wherein the COVID-19 patient had stayed or traveled there. And, it will send notifications to users who have been in close contact with any person who gets tested positive for coronavirus.
[Note: Besides GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth beacons, and RFID (Radio-frequency identification) tags can also be used for location tracking]
MeitY has already released the Corona Kavach beta app on Google Play store (here) and once it clears all the bugs, the application will be made available to the public not just for Android phones but also for Apple iPhones.
Besides the Corona Kavach by MeitY, Niti Aayog, the government's planning commission is also working another critical mobile application CoWin-20.
With the help of mobile's GPS (user has to permit location access), CoWin-20 will try to stop the community spread of coronavirus among the citizens. It will also ask for the mobile owner's travel history, to determine if he or she is at risk of getting COVID-19 and also ascertain the number of people the user may have come in contact with.
Furthermore, it will offer the location of the government health centers to get themselves tested for the coronavirus. The new app once fully cleared for bugs will be rolled out to the public on both Google Play and the Apple App Store for Android mobiles and iPhones, respectively.
Both Corona Kavach and CoWin-20 will support English and all regional languages of India.
In a related development, Indian youth, Prabin Kumar Das, a B Tech student (Electronics Communication and Engineering) at Lovely Professional University (LPU) along with his professors has developed an IoT device called ‘KAWACH’ to promote safe social distancing.
The gadget comes in a small pendant form factor. It can vibrate and glow in case someone breaches the user’s safe space of 1 metre (approx. 3.2 feet). Furthermore, it comes equipped with a handwash reminder that beeps every 30 minutes to remind the user to wash his or her hands, as well as a temperature sensor that alerts them via an SMS in case their body temperature crosses the prescribed limit.
The research team has successfully conducted KAWACH’s pilot testing among the staff members at LPU. It is now looking for the right manufacturing partners for its commercialisation.
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