Srinagar, April 01: As the COVID pandemic has created panic among the masses owing to the deluge of fake news and misleading guidelines being floated on social media, a Kashmiri web developer has come up with https://jkcov.pw a website which, he claims, provides authentic updates and information on COVID cases with special focus on J&K.
The website keeps a trail of different developments and active cases, deaths and recoveries of COVID patients in J&K.
The site developer, Sheikh Uzair Hussain while talking to Rising Kashmir said that the site was developed to create awareness on the pandemic.
“Taking into consideration the current whirlpool of COVID-19 misinformation spread on the internet creates panic among people. The site was developed to provide reliable and timely updates procured from official source”, he said.
He said, “It is difficult to differentiate between actual and fake news when people share misleading information and videos on social media. On the contrary, everything on the site is verified and also mentions the source of information.”
Talking about the dangers of fake news during this pandemic, he said, “There are videos on social media that claim that coronavirus can be cured by ginger and they are shared by thousands of people per day on social media sites, which act as primary sources of information for most people. It is very dangerous for society when people spread rumours about multiple coronavirus patients in your locality given its sensitiveness.”
‘Talaashsrinagar’, an official website of district administration Srinagar is incorporated in the COVID-19 guide. The district administration site provides a platform to self-report about you and also about people who have not declared their travel history to the local health authorities or COVID-19 helpline numbers.
The website also allows visitors to register as volunteers and the list is shared in real-time with many govt. and non-govt. organisations working in the field for effective management.
Hussain said that the site loads smoothly on 2G network, but for that be had to cut a lot of corners and drop numerous speed insensitive features.
“Updating the site takes longer due to low 2G speed, he further added. The website encompasses content about prevention methods, common symptoms and government helplines. It also presents the numerical data in the form of counter, graph and heat map of the districts.
Hussain says that the website addresses some popular myths about Coronavirus and allows the users to chat with an Al (Artificial Intelligence) based Bot called Quro. “Quro assesses their symptoms. It Is through the integration of the website with Medius Health,” he added.
Uzair said that he plans to add lab tracker & quarantine facility tracker to it so that people can easily locate these two facilities in the times of need.
Asked about his technical know-how at this young age, he gave the credit to his school, his mentors and the experience he gained while being part of Atal Tinkering Lab at the school.
“I have recently passed out from Delhi Public School Srinagar and it is there where I got exposed to work with cutting edge technologies. Besides my personal interest, the school provided me with a healthy & free environment to experiment on various technologies,” he said.
Uzair added that he has also been part of Atal Marathon where he worked on Smart Garbage Collection including sensor networks & smart garbage bins.
Muazzam Khursheed, one among several people who took to twitter sharing the website link, said, “jkcov.pw is doing an exceptional job in Informing people about COVID-19 cases in J&K.”
Other than keeping the masses updated, the corona guide shows a District heat map which puts in picture the overall cases from different districts all over J&K.
With inputs from Rising Kashmir
