Distributed indie hackers create FOSS web app implemented by dozens of countries to monitor and help decrease the spread of COVID-19.
Hey fellow hackers, we're a group of volunteers that naturally and passionately started working together on CoronaStatus - Dutch version, US version (just launched). We all had the idea that something more could be done to help slow down the spread of COVID-19.
So, instigated by a tweet from @adriaanvanrossum, a Twitter thread ensued. The thread quickly converted into a Telegram chat, where Michael McMillan and the team at BustaByte offered to build on top of their Norwegian version of this idea.
With help from more indie hackers you may know (@levelsio, @kilian, @lseelenbinder, @anthilemoon, and more), we quickly launched a second version in the Netherlands. After this, things started compounding. More people came in doing FULLY distributed work.
Within just a few days, we've designed, implemented, and launched multiple translations, questionnaires based on outbreak prediction research, new maps, and app instances in over a dozen countries.
The use is growing fast, and more and more countries are adding their languages to the repo.
You could say it's starting to go...viral.
Now we're at the point where people can implement this for their own countries with just a little help. So we can focus on building out new features (like more statistics, insights, and hopefully, prediction) and start marketing the hell out of it.
We'd like you to check it out and, if you're keen on contributing, help us out! We need help in technical, data science, and marketing stuff!
Stay strong and see you on the other side of this pandemic!
Cheers!
Jibran
Interesting initiative, here in Spain the numbers reported of confirmed cases (currently 64k as today March 27) are probably 15% of the real situation, the real number should be around 450k-550k, so it's probably one of the most affected countries in the world (if not the #1).
The government is intendedly not testing suspicious cases, and today they announced they will not test "obvious cases". So from now on, they are not testing suspicious or obvious cases (they are just focusing on testing health workers or specific people).
I know dozens of people with symptoms that are not tested and maybe never going to be tested, there are not enough tests and it looks like a situation will continue the following weeks.
The Madrid Community Gov has released a local app for doing exactly the same as yours (https://coronamadrid.comunidad.madrid/) but they are not releasing any stats, so it's a pity because they have encouraged people to report the situation there, and it looks like the data is going nowhere.