TITLE:
EPIDEM: A Mobile Application to Contain Coronavirus Disease 2019
AUTHORS:
Goetz Robert Uwe Grosche, Anna Katrina Javier Bolivar
KEYWORDS:
COVID-19, Coronavirus Disease 2019, Mobile Application
JOURNAL NAME:
E-Health Telecommunication Systems and Networks,
Vol.9 No.4,
December
15,
2020
ABSTRACT: With the spread of COVID-19 across the globe, almost
33 million people became sick and almost 1 million have died (WHO). The
government of the Philippines, along with the government of other countries
declared movement restrictions or lockdown in the attempt to contain the virus.
This resulted in loss of job and economic breakdown. The Philippines, in particular,
experienced the longest and strictest lockdown. As a down side, a lot of people
have lost their jobs and the country is currently facing economic recession.
With the aim of containing the virus to reopen the economy, a team of experts
developed a mobile application called EPIDEM. The application is available for
both Android and Apple smartphones. With the use of EPIDEM, lay people can
monitor their infection risk for COVID-19 and isolate themselves or get
themselves tested when infection risk is high. Users can also monitor the
health risk of other people that they come in contact with, so they can decide
if meeting them is safe or risky. Further, the application provides a
monitoring map that shows the area that is safe from COVID-19 and area where a possible
outbreak might occur. The monitoring map will be helpful to both lay people, so
they would know the places to avoid and to government officials, so they can
quickly respond to outbreak. The teams of developers are recommending the nationwide implementation of EPIDEM
to help contain the COVID-19 outbreak in the country. The application is not a
new strategy of containment. Instead, it’s a better wheel that utilizes advanced technology to execute the manual containment strategies that are already
being implemented in the country.