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HomeHealthcovid19india.org, source of ‘legitimate’ Covid data since Feb 2020, decides to shut...

covid19india.org, source of ‘legitimate’ Covid data since Feb 2020, decides to shut shop

Analytical platform covid19india.org says those who work for it are volunteers who have to return to normal lives, and hence it will shut down by 31 October. 

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New Delhi: The Covid-19 data analytics platform, covid19india.org, which had quickly become the source of legitimate Covid data in the country, has decided to stop its operations by 31 October. 

In a blog post on its website, the organisation founder, who has never revealed their identity, wrote that most who worked for it were volunteers who now have to go back to their normal lives. 

“16 months. 300+ volunteers. 4.4 billion website visits. Numerous dashboards and projections driven by our data. Keeping India informed about Covid-19,” the post reads. 

We are a voluntary collective: No formal organization, no employees, no hierarchy — just a group of people who turn up every day to keep this going! With our work and personal lives limping back to normalcy, we believe it’s time for us to look ahead and focus on them,” it added. 

The collective, responding to a ThePrint email, reiterated the point. 

All of those who have been involved in this initiative have been doing this in a volunteering capacity. All of us have our jobs/studies/lives to live,” it said. “This hasn’t been a full time engagement for any of us. Hence, the future for those at the heart of the operations is to continue living their normal lives.”

The news of their shutdown has come as a disappointment to data experts and doctors. 

Bhramar Mukherjee, a researcher at the University of Michigan tweeted that “in an already data poor environment in India, this is a huge loss”. 

 

The collective, however, told ThePrint that while they understand this problem, they don’t have a “sustainable way” to keep the platform up and running.  

“While we understand that it’s an area of concern, we also realise that it’s practically impossible for us to continue forever. Since March 2020, there hasn’t been a single day where we took time off from the initiative. And since we see that Covid will continue into 2022 as well, there’s no sustainable way for us to keep this running,” it said. “Having said that, we are in the process of documenting everything — from the sources of data, to how we solutioned the whole initiative. That in itself should provide enough information for anyone who wants to fill in.”


Also read: India unlikely to give indemnity to foreign vaccines, may consider only if shortage persists


Formation, history, going ahead 

The collective started publishing data in February 2020 during the onset of the first wave of the Covid pandemic. 

Due to the  “lack of centralised, easily accessible data”, a group of people, who wished to remain anonymous, started collecting data from various state bulletins, collating and publishing them. 

“The initial days were a lot of fine tuning of our processes and systems to adjust to the changing bulletin formats and inconsistent reporting,” the collective told ThePrint. “Over the months, the state bulletins have stabilised and they have become a reliable source for us to refer to.”

Over the months the platform has had several volunteers joining in, some related to coding (website, api, automation code), some related to data collection (state/district numbers, vaccination, testing et al), some additional help groups (medical advice from doctors, mental health groups, data analysis groups et al).

“So there’s been a wide variety of folks who’ve contributed,” they added.

A lot of these operations have now been stopped over time. 

Asked if the collective will come together in the event of a third wave, they responded, “No idea. Too soon to comment on this. For now, we will start documenting everything in as clear a way as possible. As of today, we consider October 31st 2021 to be the last day for data updation.”

(Edited by Arun Prashanth)


Also read: Over 20,000 post-vaccination Covid cases in Kerala district has Centre worried


 

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