Thread by @danamlewis

#COVID19 (coronavirus) is coming. It’s not a question of if, but when and where. Public health authorities are preparing, but we ask ourselves: “what can we do?”. Most advice for individuals is to wash our hands. But we can, and should, do more.

Here’s what we can do (thread):

We could use modern smartphone technology, including BLE and Location Services, to empower individuals and personal networks to automatically and anonymously track their own interactions, and inform themselves and their friends and family about increased infection risks.

Why?

This will allow individuals to make informed risk-based decisions about when it’s most important to implement additional social distancing measures above and beyond the measures already being recommended community-wide.

While #COVID19 has prompted this, it’s useful for reducing spread of all infectious diseases (like flu & colds). Widespread community adoption will get families, social networks, and communities talking about how to stop multiple types of transmissible illnesses.

Limiting cold and flu spread may also make it easier to spot, contain, and treat outbreaks of #COVID19 or new emerging viruses, would save resources to treat those most critically ill, and could directly save some of the tens of thousands of lives lost every year to flu.

So what can we do?

Initially, build a website that allows users to get tailored information, specific to location and/or network, about level of potential exposure as well as suggestions for hygiene, social distancing, or self-isolation measures appropriate to location/history.

And to fully unleash the power of community epidemiology, we should create an app - we’re calling it CoEpi - that empowers people to leverage their personal social network for better awareness of granular infection risks and alert them for close contact interaction.

How might this work? See these two pictures, or read the up-to-date text version of how we envision this might work at co-epi.github.io/website/.

So who’s building this app?

We hope you’ll help! Please reach out if you’re a developer or have expertise and want to contribute to this project.

But if you don’t have relevant expertise, please 1) RT this and 2) get ready to help your community by using and encouraging others to use the app when it’s ready.

(Why are we so passionate about this? We have family members who are at high risk from infections - whether that is #COVID19, flu, or other illnesses. We’d love to stop transmissible illnesses: we think CoEpi is a way to collaborate as a community to help limit transmissions.)

TLDR? RT this thread, point people to co-epi.github.io/website/, and reach out if you want to help us build CoEpi and put the power of reducing transmissible viral illnesses in our communities’ hands.

CoEpi: Community Epidemiology In Action.