hackCOVID 2.0

As per the revised guidelines by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), patients with mild symptoms are advised to access medical care in home isolation. In a situation where patients need professional care in hospitals, patients and their caregivers are already stressed enough. Running around the city to arrange for resources in times of scarcity and distress is unimaginable. Moreover, studies show that herd immunity protects citizens from this infectious disease. India, being a densely populated nation, needs to ramp up its vaccination drive in the coming months.

• Suggest and implement technical solutions in which home-isolated patients can consult remotely located healthcare providers from across the globe.
• Propose and execute novel ideas that send an alert to trusted contacts when the health conditions of a home-isolated patient deteriorate.
• Build a real-time tracker for the availability of vaccines, oxygen concentrators or cylinders, ICU or non-ICU beds in hospitals, recovery drugs, plasma/blood donors, and the like in your city with map integration.
• Ideate on and execute ideas that can aid in ramping up vaccine production and procurement processes.

Since the second wave hit India, people of the nation have stepped up to help absolute strangers in whatever capacity they can - from verifying leads and looking for resources to providing home-cooked meals and even helping cremate the dead.

• Create an application that allows infected individuals/families and their caregivers to easily avail themselves of multiple services/offerings by volunteers in their vicinity or across the country.
• Build a system that connects volunteers with various NGOs and similar foundations that are working tirelessly toward combating the outbreak.
• Develop a tool that seamlessly connects patients and their caregivers with hospitals, blood banks, diagnostic centers, pharmacies, donors, and support groups in cases of emergencies. Allow users to raise monetary funds on the portal.
• Develop a portal that educates communities from all walks of life on different variants of COVID-19 and its symptoms, common recovery guidelines for mildly-symptomatic patients, and ways to stop the spread and break the chain. Integrate a forum for recently-recovered individuals to share their experiences and guide others through the recovery process.
• Hundreds of infants may have lost their parents to the deadly virus. Suggest solutions that allow individuals and non-profit organizations to foster or adopt such infants.
• Build similar solutions for pets whose owners are suffering from the virus or may have succumbed to the disease.

Mental wellness is the need of the hour, with everyone dealing with the second wave in their own way and with their own struggles due to the lockdown restrictions and the overall COVID situation.

• Use AI to identify different mental health triggers for users (COVID-infected individuals, their caregivers, people who have recently lost loved ones, or healthy individuals stressed) via user’s connected devices and recommend them with mental health therapists and helplines.
• Build a solution specially designed for front-line workers - healthcare professionals, and law enforcement officers, journalists, and the like - to keep tabs on their mental health and consult therapists in a single step.

Even in these desperate times, scamsters are abundant. We have heard about people distributing fake medicines and vaccine vials, or charging 5x for hospital beds, ambulances, and oxygen cylinders/concentrators.

• Use data science/machine learning techniques to identify fake medicines as opposed to real ones that are distributed to caregivers and healthcare centers.
• Propose ideas to regulate illegal and unauthorized production of COVID drugs and vaccine vials.

To maintain peace and order within the society and not create a state of panic, it is imperative that the administration be well equipped.

• Build a portal that verifies COVID-related news.
• Develop a face mask detection system that can be integrated with security surveillance cameras to send notifications to individuals on wearing their masks properly.
• Build a one-stop dashboard that shares all COVID-related restrictions, such as curfew/lockdown guidelines, containment zones, and travel/trade restrictions, in states across the country and different countries across the globe.
• Recently, several cases of black, white, and yellow fungi have been reported in COVID-infected and recovered patients. Use data science methods to identify conditions and symptoms that can successfully predict more of such probable cases in the future.
• Technology can play a pivotal role for individuals and organizations to be better prepared for the third wave. Use available data to propose technological solutions that can help curb the spread of this infection in children and diabetic patients.
• Build a risk-assessment system that accurately measures the potency of the virus and alerts users based on factors such as their age, immunity power, pre-existing health conditions, and the like.