A thread on how information exchange can be improved during current Covid crisis using a very simple and easily available tool
#COVID19 #CovidIndia #COVID19India #CovidIndiaInfo #Google #maps @sundarpichai @GoogleIndia @Google @googlemaps @avoidmepleaseee @AnOpenLetter001

Medical facilities are under a great stress throughout India. Reports of shortage of equipment/oxygen/medicines/beds/ventilators/plasma are emerging from all parts of the country. As a reaction to this situation, there is a huge community effort being driven on social media..

Many users are posting pics/contacts who can help with various equipment/facilities in different areas/cities( @avoidmepleaseee @AnOpenLetter001). It is definitely helping in making resources available to people who are in urgent need and do not know about the availability..

Although this effort is helping people, there is a lot of duplicate effort and even after this duplicate effort the information being posted is localized to that user's reach. Also, there is a huge mismatch of Information demand and supply in this effort on different platforms..

Example: Today my wife told me about a friend's Whatsapp status wherein bed/oxygen availability in Lucknow was inquired. while going through my twitter feed few minutes back, I saw a tweet where @avoidmepleaseee had posted a list of contacts who could help with this in Lucknow..

I forwarded the tweet to my wife and she forwarded to her friend. I am not sure if it actually helped or not, but the point is that information demand and supply were on different platforms and in different peer groups. Demand and supply match was possible by a very slim chance..

Few problems with above model
-info demand and supply are scattered across different platforms
-useful information being posted is localized
-less chance of information reaching the needy (a person in state of medical emergency is very unlikely to check social media feeds)..

This model of information exchange (even though has a far better reach as compared to official channels of information) has a lot of bottlenecks and can be greatly improved on by using a very common app which is available on most of the mobile phones by default - @googlemaps..

@googlemaps can be used to match information providers and information seekers. It is already capable of enabling this on its current architecture but few tweaks are needed from their side in order to facilitate this "community" information exchange in a stream lined manner..

1. maps already has a layer called "Covid-19 info" which can be enhanced to include additional information regarding health infra
2. special categories should be available for major class of equipment/facilities (ex: Oxygen/beds/ventilators/plasma) - to standardize tagging..

3. anyone knowing of any available resource should be allowed to tag it on the map at exact location and attach contact information which can be used to verify if the resource is actually available or not. No Approval required - to enable fast and timely information exchange..

4. anyone should be able to remove existing tags in case they find out that the tagged facility has been exhausted at that place. No Approval required - to remove bad/outdated tags from the system and reduce time wastage..

It is possible that allowing everyone to tag and untag without approvals can be misused by bad actors but we have to understand that there is a war like crisis situation building up and we will have to rely on the community for faster exchange of information..

as during this pandemic, time is of the highest importance and can prove to be fatal if not used properly. To minimize the negative impact, the proposed changes can be restricted to "Covid-19 info" layer only and this layer can be highlighted on the home page for better reach..

A humble request - If you think this can help even a single human being, then re tweet it so it can get the required traction to be implemented and promoted by authorities and by @Google

I request everyone to re tweet the first tweet in the thread for better context of the reader.