The Greater Chennai Corporation has developed an app to geographically map people having fever, the most common symptom of COVID-19.

Chennai :

The Greater Chennai Corporation has developed an app to geographically map people having fever, the most common symptom of COVID-19. Touted as the first such technology to be used in any city in the country, the app, named as GCC Corona Monitoring, will mark people in home quarantine as well as the areas where crowd gathers against social distancing norms. The app developed by a team of volunteers from Mr Cooper will be officially launched within a week, confirmed official sources.

“Currently, most of the urban civic bodies in the country are actively monitoring only people under home quarantine. But, there could also be a cluster of people with fever symptoms in a particular area. Since most people are staying indoors, nobody knows if the person next door is having fever. This can lead to community spread,” said M P Azhagu Pandia Raja, a research fellow with Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, who conceptualised the app for Greater Chennai Corporation.

How it works?
1) Click on the option in app
2) Photo of house for location
3) As more people notify fever symptoms, officials can identify clusters and send health workers

Home-quarantined people
1) App geo-tags people
2) Will help civic body to channelise more resources
3) Over 1,000 have downloaded the app and marked themselves

Notifying about crowds
There is an option to notify the civic body about crowd in an area. Anyone can click the picture of a group and send it through the app

Where to get it?
Since Playstore is taking down apps related to COVID to stop spread of fake news, it will be released on GCC’s website

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by KV Navya / Express News Service / March 31st, 2020