Why in News?

• Recently Indian government has initiated few digital initiatives in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic. This is how technology comes as a saviour in the critical times.

Few Initiatives taken by the Government:

Platform to host Webinars:

• The Government has developed a platform which will host webinars by All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) doctors for healthcare workers across the country.
• A webinar platform has been developed in tandem with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
• The webinars are for the frontline health workers (nurses, paramedics, ASHA- Accredited Social Health Activist workers, Anganwadi workers), who are more prone to COVID-19.
• The webinars would be streamed on Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp..
• The state governments would also be involved so as to make the content available in regional languages.

‘Corona Kavach’

• The Government has also developed a contact path tracing app that will trace the paths of COVID-19 positive patients, serving as a warning to possible contacts.
• The app would store location data and would enter the credentials of the person if he/she tests positive. This information would be sent to the cloud.
• A signal would come to the app which would convert it from green to red.
• The server would then find out people who were in close proximity with the infected person in the last 14 days.
• Their apps would turn yellow and they would get an alert that they should quarantine themselves.

Other Initiatives of the Government:

• Chat Boxes on Facebook and WhatsApp have been set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) for providing information about COVID-19.
• A portal to map the requirements of hospitals, and cross-referencing them with those who have offered to help with equipment is also being set up by the government.