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Andhra Pradesh uses modern technology to keep its people safe from coronavirus

Amid the rising coronavirus cases in India, Andhra Pradesh government has adopted a unique and modern idea to curb the spread of the deadly virus in the state and protect the people of the state.

Andhra Pradesh uses modern technology to keep its people safe from coronavirus

Amid the rising coronavirus cases in India, Andhra Pradesh government has adopted a unique and modern idea to curb the spread of the deadly virus in the state and protect the people of the state.

Two unique tools developed by the State Disaster Management Authority with the help of other agencies is being used by Andhra Pradesh for this task:  


1) Track each person in home quarantine real time.


2) To track the travel history of positive cases. 


Here's how this works


Authorities are using the first tool called the COVID-19 alerting tracking system to track over 25,000 people placed under home quarantine. This tool helps the authorities to track the location of their numbers realtime with the help of telecomm service providers and mobile tower signals.


- The state authorities have a database of mobile numbers of all these 25,000 people and by taking the base location as the location of the residence of respective person, the tool alerts the district authorities if the person travels beyond a 100 mter radius from the base location thereby violating the norms of home quarantine. 


- Upon receiving the alert, the authorities then get in touch with the violator asking him to get back and do the needful.


- If the violator refuses to get in touch with authorities, the matter is escalated and the state authorities then jump into action. 
The authorities are using this tool to ensure that each person placed under home quarantine abides by the guidelines.

 

The state authorities are using second tool to track the travel history of all the positive cases using the same data and mobile tower siganls.


- The authorities are using the patient's phone number to find out all the places that the person has travelled to. 


- After receiving the locations of the patients, the authoritries are narrowing down on the places where the patient has spent at least 15 minutes


- The tool is playing an important role in helping the authorities track local transmission, setup red zones within a 2-3 km radius and sanitize. 
The authorities have already mapped all the locations that 20 of the +ve cases have visited by now. 

It is learnt that Telangana, Bihar and Odisha governments are also planning to follow Andhra Pradesh model and use the tools to curb the spread of coronavirus in their respective states.