Kinsa Health - An innovative startup which can play an ingenious role in fighting COVID-19

The biggest problem nations are facing in the fight against COVID-19 is sheer detection of the spread. The virus is too quick and too evasive, even after blocking all international flights, implementing social distancing measures and even a rigorous lockdown, it has managed to continue its spread through the populations in search of victims who's fates have been sealed (mostly aged ones and those with lung related medical history).

While lockdowns and social distancing can play a role in slowing down its spread, what can truly beat this virus is fast and rigorous testing of individuals, so that those carrying this virus can be quickly identified and prevented from spreading it further in time. So far, South Korea is probably the only nation which has successfully managed to increase the level of testing to such proportions that they're able to beat the virus' spread in time and also able to save many lives.

But such mass testing is very difficult in countries like USA and Canada, and perhaps practically impossible in a country like India resided by over 1.3 billion individuals and a clumsy and low-tech administration. But even in countries like India, mass testing is possible to some extent but both political will of the administration and a little bit of creativity is needed for that! A working model of this creative and ingenious idea already exists in the form of Kinsa Health, a US based startup created by an Indian philanthropist, Inder Singh.

Kinsa's apparently simple but ingenious idea is this digital thermometer which apart from checking the patient's temperature once she puts in the mouth (like a regular thermometer), also sends that data to a remote server on the cloud connected to the internet. This way, with multiple users doing temperature readings throughout the day, a geo-spatial temperature map can be created which tells you people in which area have more fever than others!

This kind of invaluable data can work wonders in determining strategies to stop the spread of corona virus in a locality and deciding which areas should be kept under lockdown continually and which shouldn't. Not just that, in the absence of an efficient mass testing process like that of South Korea, this can provide a good enough alternative though it may not be the best.

But this can only work if most people participate in it and to ensure that, a strong political will is needed along with effective communication of leaders with the masses, especially in democratic countries where such hard measures cannot be adopted like those of China or Korea.