Data is Daata: In Times Of A Pandemic

In this article, I’m going to explain why and how data is one of the most crucial resources to fight a pandemic, what kind of data is required, what is being done by the government, and how is it playing out. Having worked with a city-level authority on visualisation of COVID patient-data, I have some insights and opinions that I would like to share.

It is rather the one of the worst nationwide catastrophes, India has faced, and we are in the middle of a 3-week lockdown. The government is ramping up its resources, calling on experts and medical professionals to help keep pace with the growing infection levels.

There is although one thing that we need to understand. This lockdown is neither a definitive nor a long-term solution to the problem. The lockdown is at a fast pace depleting supplies, creating unemployment and making people falsely believe that the government is over-reacting. A lockdown that goes beyond 6-weeks might put the economy into a downward spiral, recovery from which might require extreme measures like direct benefit transfers, for which, our country doesn’t have the resources, for more than a month.

Now this leaves us with opening of the lockdown, and exposing a billion people to the deadly virus. Even if the lockdown-lift is phase-wise, the exposure could lead to a second wave/peak that has been recently hinted at.

The only ammunition effective in this situation would be infection level and spread data. Consolidated data on infected citizens, their mapped travel histories, contact-traced, symptomatic individuals with their respective travel histories can be used to create zones: safe, unsafe and epicenter.

• These zones can then be dealt with using different resources and strategies for re-opening of industries, warehouses and reinstating supply chains for essential goods.
• Inform people of the zones through an interactive map to help them stay out of the unsafe zones, amd alert them.
• Routes can be optimised for public transport based on this data, enabling safe commute for workers in these essential services.
• Quarantine facilities can be developed for the suspicious cases and strict enforcement would be possible for these zones, considering we’d know the kind of activity levels in the zones.

Now that we see how useful this data is, let’s talk about how can we aggregate this data and also look at the Aarogya Setu Mobile App, which is our government’s endeavour to collect this information.

The district administration is collecting primary data using hospital admissions and contact-tracing, is aggregating patient level, block level and district level data. This data then travels from the districts to the state, and is then reported from the states to the MoHFW, Government of India.

Many states have launched their own COVID dashboards displaying the number of cases, their demographics but rarely their geo-locations. However, it is in the interest of the administration also to make the geo-data open for public.

For example, Telangana State Government has been informing people through the press about infection zones since March, 2nd week. The problem however with this is the channel of dissemination and the fragmented data pieces that are hard for people to put together. Consolidation is important.

Surat Municipal Corporation is a better example. They have dashboards on their websites that display infection zones to citizens, they have a dedicated WhatsApp service for information sharing and fact checking and they also are divulging information on the patient’s name (debatable because of privacy and safety concerns) for people to know if they’ve come in contact with that person or their family/friends. (https://www.suratmunicipal.gov.in/)

Next, let’s look at the Aarogya Setu Mobile App, that the centre has launched for mapping patients and informing citizens if they’re near an infected person. Now, this application clearly has raised privacy concerns because it asks for location updates 24*7 for it to do what it promises.

More than the privacy issues, there are concerns on the approach the centre has taken. If you have used the application, you would know that it predicts your safety based on 3 questions, yes, 3 questions, and it says “You Are Safe”. They crowdsource this data and based on clusters inform people if they’re in an infection zone. So simply put, your and your neighbours’ answers to those 3 questions determine if you all are safe. There are numerous concerns that are apparent in this approach.

• The economists shout about issues caused due to information assymetry and concealed information. Telling people that they are safe or in danger based on public data is, least to say, dangerous.
• Some people might make decisions based on the prediction. We’ve seen people go out on roads and gather to compose utensil-music and light diyas. What is to stop them from going out, seeing the “You Are Safe” sign on the government app.
• The application nowhere mentions of staying at home, only recommends not going to social gatherings which again coming from the national government can have repercussions.

This was my take on why and how data is important but what is being done right now is insufficient and rather detrimental to the cause. We must understand our citizens' psyche before launching something at a scale under these special circumstances.