COVID-19 Technology Resources For Cities & States
HELP MAYORS and GOVERNORS RESPOND TO and RECOVER FROM COVID-19
Tech4America bridges Silicon Valley with public leaders to tackle big public challenges. Because of our partnerships with mayors and governors across the nation, we can disseminate tech ideas for responding to and recovering from Covid-19 widely and quickly. This page is updated regularly as * NEW * info and ideas become available.
Share a tech idea at t4a@t4a.org or using this simple Google form.
T4A is only a tech resource, not a government agency. For that, start with < coronavirus.gov >.
Jump to a section:
Medical Technologies for Telehealth, Testing, Contact Tracing, and More
Tech for Communicating to the Public & Showing Covid-19 Spread
Tech for Providing Public Services & Public Benefits
Tech for Remote Learning / Home Education
Got A Tech Idea to Help Cities & States?
Tech to Help Provide Public Services & Benefits
Tech to Better Provide Government Services & Benefits
1. Finding Tech Talent 2. Handling Incoming Public Inquiries 3. Working Remotely
4. Online Services for Citizens, Small Businesses, & Non-Profits
Finding Tech Talent to Help City & State Leaders
- Techies Volunteering via US Digital Response - This is a volunteer-run, non-partisan effort to help federal, state, and local government with technology, data, design, and more during the COVID-19 crisis. All volunteer, all free. U.S. Digital Response was founded by former U.S. Deputy CTOs & seasoned tech industry veterans who led federal open data policies and started the U.S. Digital Service. They have already sourced 3,000+ qualified, skilled people, including the Founder of Code.org and many of the technologists who saved the Obamacare website after its disastrous launch. (posted April 15)
More information: http://usdigitalresponse.org
https://www.usdigitalresponse.org/requesthelp
Contact: info@usdigitalresponse.org
- Matching Tech Volunteers for Covid-19 Projects - "Help with Covid" is matching volunteers to pandemic-related projects, especially those using technology tools. They're working on many prevention, medical, and community projects. (posted April 20)
More information: https://helpwithcovid.com
Contact: helpwithcovid@gmail.com
- First Draft is an non-partisan nonprofit connecting technologists, public health experts, academics and journalists. Online training courses, crisis simulations and a database of fact checked and verifiable reports are all provided in support of credible coverage, responsible reporting and ethics to ensure accurate information sharing to the public. (posted April 20)
More information: https://firstdraftnews.org/long-form-article/coronavirus-resources-for-reporters/
Contact: info@firstdraft.org
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Coronavirus Tech Handbook - This is a crowdsourced library of tools and articles relating to COVID-19 response. It has wide ranging subjects and is a rapidly evolving resource with thousands of expert contributors. (posted April 22)
More information: https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/ home
Subscribe to Newsletter: mailchi.mp/1c5533dceb5a/coronavirusnewsletter
Facebook Page: facebook.com/groups/coronavirustechhandbook
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Finding People to Do Tracing & Other Public Outreach (The Social Practice) - In many states and counties, contract tracing and other work will require paid staff or highly trained volunteers to conduct hundreds of thousands of conversations via phone and text messaging with community members who have been exposed to COVID-19. The Social Practice uses widely available consumer technology to build and manage remote staff or volunteer teams capable of calling and texting millions of people at a higher volume, higher quality and lower cost than traditional vendor-based call centers and constituent contact operations. (posted April 24)
More information: https://thesocialpractice.org/
Contact: Becky Bond, co-founder becky@thesocialpractice.co / 415.595.0040
Manage Public Inquiries & Emergency Response
- Prioritize and Mobilize Resources (Salesforce) -Speed up local stabilization and disaster relief efforts with streamlined program management and incident resolution for residents, communities, and government agencies. With the Emergency Response Management for Public Sector solution, you can: Accelerate responsiveness with a single view of all requests and approvals; Empower and connect with emergency response field workers using intuitive mobile apps; and Attain mission readiness in a matter of days with compliant service deployment. (posted July 9)
More information: https://www.salesforce.com/products/emergency-response/overview/?d=cta-body-promo-94
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Managing Incoming Public Inquiries and Delivering Services - Hello Alice currently has solutions to: (1) communicate to a network of more than 4,000 small businesses; (2) tech to better manage incoming inquiries in a very personalized way; (3) distributing millions of dollars to small businesses using smart filtering tools, automated scorecards, and validation tools. They currently run grants programs for KKR, eBay, Mastercard, Verizon, Amazon and more as the back end to their programs. (posted June 18)
More information: helloaclice.com
Contact: carolyn@helloalice.com -
Managing Incoming FAQs from Citizens (Community Connect Labs) - COVID-19 Assistance Chatbot Answer frequently asked questions about resources for assistance with unemployment, childcare, housing, and other existing resources. -- Reduce inbound questions and hold-times for phone lines -- Provide answers to questions quickly, conveniently and confidentially -- Language Access: English, Spanish and other languages upon request -- Robust Reporting: Monitor top questions and number of questions answered (posted May 11)
More information: https://www.communityconnectlabs.com/covid-19-chatbot-for-covid-19-referral
https://www.communityconnectlabs.com/covid-19-communications-solutions-for-government
Contact: perla@communityconnectlabs.com
Government Teams Working Remotely
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* NEW * Digital Permitting, Licensing, and Remote Work Tools for Public Employees - CityGrows, based in Erie, Pennsylvania, is helping large and small governments transition quickly to remote work and digital services. No up-front cost and with very little staff time (and no IT / coding/ network support). Its low-cost, SaaS platform allows any size of government to quickly stand up digital permitting, licensing, and internal workflows, allowing government employees to work from home and continue to provide key operations. They've helped governments stand up COVID-19 relief application and restaurant reopening certification workflows in as little as a day, and all their COVID-related workflows are free for local governments to use. They encourage governments to copy and repurpose each other's work, reducing setup time. (posted June 18)
More information: workflow library - https://community.citygro.ws/workflows
Contact: catherine@citygro.ws
- * NEW * Improving the Work of Government Teams Working Remotely - CivicActions focuses on effective distributed teams in government by helping agencies work effectively during the sudden move from office to telework. There are a range of training and consulting offerings, including: training on how to telework efficiently and securely use commercial software/hardware; training for specific leadership issues around distributed team cohesion, trust and isolation; training on how to setup and effectively run large secure meetings online; training on how to recruit while physically distributed; executive strategy briefings and consulting help writing practical telework policies that work at scale. From mid-March to the end of April, CivicActions ran free daily webinars and training workshops for federal, state and local agencies. (posted June 18)
More information: https://civicactions.com
Contact: john.oduinn@civicactions.com
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Coordinating Work with Remote Teams - Friyay.io has built a free platform for coordinating remote teams, that can be used for project management and info-sharing. They can set up spaces and help manage info for any cities/states/other gov't entities that would like to put it to use. (posted May 11)
More information: friyay.io
Contact: angela@friyay.io
Making Sense of a Future of Working Remotely
Link March 24, 2020
n this podcast, podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Matt Mullenweg about the evolution of distributed work. They discuss the benefits of working from home, the new norms of knowledge work, relevant tools and security concerns, the challenges for managers, the importance of written communication, the necessity of innovating in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, delivery networks as critical infrastructure, economic recovery, and other topics. Matt Mullenweg is a founding developer of WordPress, the Open Source software used by 36% of the web.
Online Services to Help Citizens, Small Businesses, and Non-Profits
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Resources for Citizens Seeking Help - #WhileAtHome is a clearinghouse for credible information and action steps for citizens and front line professionals trying to navigate the pandemic. Founded by people like DeRay Mckesson whose experience ranges from community organizing to traditional politics to start-up and tech/design, they created that hub "so that people didn’t have to visit 20 different sites or platforms to get quality help." The work is supported by tech companies like Twilio, Twitter, and Slack. (posted May 1)
More information: https://whileathome.org
https://whileathome.org/frequently-asked-questions/
Contact: info@whileathome.org
- Connecting Local Aid Groups & Engabling Neighbor-to-Neighbor Help - Golden's Mutual Aid platform offers free-forever live tools for organizing and tracking mutual aid groups activities, publishing branded live feeds of communities' needs and offers, and for enabling individuals to participate in neighbor-to-neighbor help. The platform is currently being used by two state governments, numerous local mutual aid groups, and is being piloted by two national networks with memberships of 19mm and 50mm members respectively. The platform is supported by Golden, which is the most popular app for volunteering and the most globally-awarded software for managing volunteer programs in every sector.
More information: https://www.goldenvolunteer.com
Medium post on the origins of the platform
TV news story
Contact: sam@goldenvolunteer.com
- Seamless Docs is offering multiple web based tools for government agencies to provide information and services to constituents remotely as well as facilitating access to necessary forms and functions for government employees working in remote settings. Templates include: Coronavirus government agency web portals and a library of critical forms constituents need without having to appear in person at government offices. (posted April 15)
More information: https://www.seamlessdocs.com/coronavirus-portal
Contact: see website
- Providing Internet Connections to Homes Without It. - Starting in 2012, Education Superhighway has upgraded internet access in schools nationwide so that now more than 99% of them have high-speed broadband. With the pandemic, they have turned to connecting the 9 million students to the internet at home via Digital Bridge K-12. This "home connectivity gap" was already impacting underserved students before Covid-19 shut down 125,000 schools. There has never been a more critical time to take action to ensure all students have equitable access to the Internet at home. "We can't quarantine kids' minds while we quarantine them at home," argues Education Superhighway Founder Evan Marwell. (posted May 28)
More information: https://digitalbridgek12.org
Blog: From Wiring Schools to Wiring Homes
Contact: info@educationsuperhighway.org
- Broadband Internet for Emergency Services, Pop-Up Services, and Schools - Cradlepoint, Inc. provides cloud-delivered 4G LTE network solutions for business, service providers, and government organizations. They can help IT teams and those responsible for standing up or expanding wireless networks during the pandemic: Establish a network in minutes at temporary or pop-up locations, including virus screening tents and mobile command centers; provide Internet and VPN connectivity to at-home workers and students with high-bandwidth needs; installing connectivity in school buses to be parked in the community; public safety. Founded in 2006, they have more than 18,000 customers worldwide in retail, financial services, healthcare, transportation, public sector, and other industries. (posted May 5)
More information: https://cradlepoint.com/covid19-response
Contact: 1-855-813-3385 or https://cradlepoint.com/company/contact_us
- Resource Center for Small Businesses - Alice, Inc. has real-world funding, resources, and support for small business owners adapting to the impacts of coronavirus. This includes English and Spanish help and a list of more than 50 financial support resources. Hello Alice is a free platform that helps businesses launch and grow. Learn more at helloalice.com (posted May 5)
- apply for a $10,000 emergency grant
- apply for an SBA disaster loan
- other financial support for small businesses
- pause or close a business
- create an online presence
More information: covid19businesscenter.com/?mc_cid=fd717e5d91&mc_eid=1f570c9f80
helloaclice.com
Contact: carolyn@helloalice.com
alice@helloalice.com
- Resource Center for Non-Profits - FastForward has rounded up resources tech nonprofits need now, from COVID-19 grants, to strategies for effective remote work, to opportunities for mentorship and pro-bono support. (posted May 11)
- grants, funding, capital
- products
- mentorship & pro bono support
- leadership & communication
- create an online presence
More information: https://www.ffwd.org/blog/announcements/covidresources/
https://www.ffwd.org
Contact: maddy@ffwd.org
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Childcare Matching for Essential Workers - Weekdays matches essential workers with local, vetted childcare professionals for Home Pods (in-home childcare programs and home school programs of three children or less). Through tech and hands on support, we can match thousands of highly qualified childcare providers and teachers (many currently out of work) with parents needing childcare who are essential workers. (posted April 22)
More information: https://joinweekdays.com
Contact: https://joinweekdays.com/signup OR shaunacausey-at-gmail-dot-com
- Supporting Working Parents (Childcare & Education Activities via Employers) - Cleo Care is a benefit service that matches families with vetted babysitters through UrbanSitter, helps parents find families for cooperative child care, and offers educational programs for parents to engage their kids. According to CEO Sarahjane Sacchetti, more than 50 large employers have already expressed interest in their Covid-19 coalition of employers to support flexible work options, provide non-bias training for managers, and offer resources to help parents stay in the workforce.. “We can’t wait for federal legislation,” Cleo's CEO Sarahjane Sacchetti said. “I just think it’s time for us to all talk about the fact that employers can do something.” (posted May 20)
More information: https://hicleo.com/covid19/
https://hicleo.com/
San Francisco Chronicle Story (May 18)
Contact: support@hicleo.com
https://hicleo.com/contact/
Facebook Resources:
Access to data and tools - COVID19 Mobility Dashboard
Local Government Alerts - Alert notifications are published on Facebook to keep residents informed.
Learn more
Information:
COVID-19 Information Center
Business Resource Hub
Out of School Tools
Religious Organizations Resource Hub
Well-being tips and resources
Remote work resources
Support:
News Industry - $100 Million. News rooms can apply
Small Businesses - $100 Million. Small Businesses can apply.
Nonprofits - connect to volunteers or offer services
Contact: thomasli@fb.com (Facebook Community Engagement)
(posted April 22)
- Lyft Providing Food & Medical Supply
Delivery for Impacted Agencies & Organizations - Through "Essential Deliveries," government agencies, local non-profits, businesses and healthcare organizations can request on-demand delivery of meals, groceries, life-sustaining medical supplies, hygiene products and home necessities - all delivered by Lyft drivers. Available in places including Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Orlando, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Diego, San Antonio and Seattle. New York City is not on the initial list. Future markets include North Carolina and Atlanta. (posted April 22)
More information: https://www.lyft.com/blog/posts/essential-deliveries
TechCrunch Article (April 15)
Contact for Agencies & Orgs:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScUiTfWdML2vVHXxNcsooEPxLYNQ8SMN3q4x8ICY8nszgR0Xw/viewform
Resources for Other Lyft Pandemic Services:
https://www.lyft.com/blog/posts/doing-more-for-patients-and-healthcare-organizations
Contact for Drivers:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1m0u70daFu0G0vME6_aPiqGbIzDRkk1eFSqiSQ69WRnI/viewform?edit_requested=true
FOOD INSECURITY
- Find Food Assistance, Help Paying Bills, and Other Programs - Thousands of organizations, including non-profits and neighborhood groups, are helping people affected by COVID-19 all across the country. FindHelp, a project of public benefit corporation AuntBertha, has pulled these programs into one location. Just enter your zip code to find local programs to help you get food if you can’t afford it, bill payment assistance and other programs that serve your area. (posted April 30)
More information: https://findhelp.org/
Contact: Demo for Public Leaders: https://company.auntbertha.com/for-customers/sales-demo/
Citizens: enter zip code on website
- Finding Sites for Free Food - WhyHunger partnered with 10x management and its software team to create a website map that lets people search for places providing free food anywhere in the US by entering a location. New food sites can be added and volunteers can sign up to help. (posted May 1)
More information: https://whyhunger.org
https://whyhunger.org/map.php
https://whyhunger-covid.herokuapp.com/signup
Contact: 1-800-5HUNGRY or findfood@whyhunger.org
- Deliveries to Home Bound Seniors - Umbrella, a startup that provides services to seniors, is now recruiting thousands of volunteers to deliver essential items to the elderly that can’t leave their homes due to shelter-in-place orders. The deliveries include contact-free groceries and prescriptions.The New York-based startup connects seniors with local providers, but in response to the coronavirus outbreak it waived its annual membership fee and began a volunteer platform to connect seniors to local volunteers. (posted May 1)
More information: https://www.askumbrella.com/request-delivery
https://www.askumbrella.com/volunteer
https://www.askumbrella.com/letter-to-our-members
https://www.askumbrella.com
Contact: 844-402-2480 OR https://www.askumbrella.com/contact
TELEHEALTH / MEDICAL SERVICES OVER THE INTERNET
- National Consortium of Telehealth Resources - Telehealth can help address COVID-19 and other pandemic situations by limiting exposure to infection for vulnerable populations and health care workers. Telehealth can also expand the reach of resources to communities that have limited access to needed services. This allows patients to receive health services away from settings where potential for contracting infectious diseases are high, such as hospitals, health clinic waiting rooms, private practices, etc. The Telehealth Resource Centers (TRCs) have compiled and developed resources specific to their regions. (posted May 11)
More information: https://www.telehealthresourcecenter.org/covid-19-resources/
Contact: https://www.telehealthresourcecenter.org/contact/
- Digital Health & Telemedicine Directory - The directory tracks telemedicine and digital health solutions including remote monitoring services, mental health services, and medical devices designed for health care at a distance. (posted April 13)
More information: https://www.cta.tech/Landing-Pages/COVID-19-Digital-Health-Resources
Contact: CTA@CTA.tech / 703-907-7600
- * NEW * Telehealth Consumer Guide - This is an informational guide to help patients learn more about telemedicine, as well as a COVID-19 consumer guide in hopes of sharing free, reliable information with those who need it. (posted July 9)
More information: https://www.drugwatch.com/health/telemedicine-patients-guide/
https://www.drugwatch.com/health/covid-19-consumers-guide/
- Youth & Families Mental Health - The Child Mind Institute has a wealth of resources to support families coping during this time. They note that your children may be feeling more anxious these days. Recommended by San Francisco school district. (posted April 25)
More information: https://childmind.org/
https://www.facebook.com/ChildMindInstitute
https://twitter.com/ChildMindInst
Contact: 202-318-3118 or see website
- Mental Health (Community Connect Labs) - Connect individuals to mental health assistance based on their needs and preferences. Enable individuals to request call-backs from caseworkers. -- Automated check-ins: Easily check-in on at-risk individuals to see if they need help -- Provide personalized referral: Match individuals to resources based on their language, location, and preferences -- Automated follow-up with individuals to ensure they got the help they needed -- Language Access: English, Spanish and other languages upon request (posted May 11)
More information: https://www.communityconnectlabs.com/covid-19-mental-health-referral-and-follow-up
https://www.communityconnectlabs.com/covid-19-communications-solutions-for-government
"Illinois Launches Calm4Calm to Provide Mental Healthcare for Residents"
Contact: perla@communityconnectlabs.com
- Mental Health (Wisdom Labs) - This San Francisco based company is offering a completely free set of resources to care for the mental, emotional, and social wellbeing of state and city employees. Their Wise@Work App provides short, science-based lessons and practices tailored to changing moods and specific work situations. The app works with their Wise@Work Communities, a peer-led SaaS product designed to build communities of learning and practice that has scaled globally within companies such as Merck, Kauffman Foundation, Salesforce, and LinkedIn. Wise@Work has specific lessons that are highly relevant during this time of increased stress, uncertainty, and social isolation. Implementing this will require no personnel and will help with the overwhelm.
More information: https://wisdomlabs.com/coronavirus-mental-emotional-wellness-response-kit/
- The Headspace meditation app has a library of guided meditations. (posted May 20)
- Ten Percent Happier app offers guided meditations, coronavirus-focused sessions (free of charge) and a daily virus-focused livestream and Q&A. (posted May 20)
- The Virus Anxiety website has daily mantras, write-in mental health questions and calming online distractions. (posted May 20)
- Free Mental Health Services for Survivors, Health Care Workers, and Others - IsolatedNotAlone.com is a comprehensive resource site developed by Astra Labs with many partners. (posted May 1)
More information: https://isolatednotalone.com
https://isolatednotalone.com/partnerships
Contact: see website
Also: Tools to Help Those in Need < https://isolatednotalone.com/tools >
Crisis Text Line - Text "FRONTLINE" to 741741
Emergency Resources for Victims of Abuse and Domestic Violence, Etc.
- Finding Health Insurance During the Pandemic - HealthInsurance.org is a buying guide for affordable health insurance. It includes tools individual health plans outside of the open enrollment period. Many Americans who lose their jobs during the coronavirus crisis will be eligible either for Medicaid or for subsidized private plan coverage in the ACA marketplace. Created in 1994 and based in Minnesota, healthinsurance.org is one of the longest running sources of in-depth information about health insurance for consumers. Follow them: @hio_org on Twitter at healthinsurance.org on Facebook at HealthInsurance.org (posted May 5)
More information: https://www.healthinsurance.org
https://www.healthinsurance.org/blog/2020/03/20/uninsured-in-a-pandemic-seek-help-its-likely-available/
https://www.healthinsurance.org/about/
Contact: 1-205-564-9166
https://www.healthinsurance.org/contact/
LEGAL, BUSINESS, and EMPLOYMENT
- Online Legal Advice - Rocket Lawyer is providing a no-cost, one-stop resource for expert legal advice, business continuity guidance, critical legal documents, and consultations with lawyers to get you through the many challenges presented by our current global emergency. The Rocket Lawyer Coronavirus Legal Center is also an essential resource for legal advice in connection with government benefits, aid programs, and small business loans, pursuant to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. (posted May 1)
More information:https://www.rocketlawyer.com/coronavirus
https://www.rocketlawyer.com
https://www.rocketlawyer.com/blog/a-message-from-our-founder-charley-moore-926283
Contact: coronavirushelp@rocketlawyer.com
- Facilitating Small Business Loans in CARES Act - The State of New Jersey and US Digital Response (see above) built a bilingual loan eligibility wizard with the New Jersey Office of Innovation for small businesses to determine their eligibility for federal stimulus funds in the CARES Act. (GitHub). (posted April 30)
More information: https://assistance.business.nj.gov/
Contact: info@usdigitalresponse.org
- Getting Tax Refunds (incl. EITCs) Faster - GetYourRefund.org is a project of Code for America and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) to help ensure eligible taxpayers claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which can be over $3,000 per family. They also help prepare taxes and save people up to $300 by filing for free. (posted April 20)
More information: GetYourRefund.org
Contact: hello@getyourrefund.org
- Helping Homeless Americans Get Covid-19 Payments - Congress passed the CARES Act in response to COVID-19, which created Economic Impact Payments (EIP), also sometimes referred to as “stimulus checks.” Individuals could be eligible for up to $1,200, or more if they have children. This project helps trusted frontline organizations guide people through the process. (posted May 21)
More information: https://tippingpoint.org/eip
https://tippingpoint.org/thought-leadership/blog/new-tools-to-get-stimulus-dollars-where-they-are-needed-most
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Unemployment Benefits (Ladder) - This an unemployment portal to help people understand the benefits they may be entitled to. Special focus on underserved communities. (posted April 22)
More information: www.ladderportal.com
https://withladder.com/unemployment
https://withladder.com/coronavirus
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Helping Music Venues Survive - UnitedWeStream hosts concerts, DJ sets and other live performances to keep clubs from going out of business. (posted May 11)
More information: https://unitedwestream.org
https://www.citylab.com/life/2020/05/livestream-concerts-music-live-performance-dj-sets-venues/611017/
Contact: https://unitedwestream.org/contact/
https://twitter.com/united_westream
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Site Selection for Emergency Activities - CityBldr, Inc. provides site selection, AI, and simulation technology that can aid both emergency response and planning. It optimizes where to put mobile field hospitals, temporary warehousing, and other structures on the landscape and can reveal ownership and other constraints. They are former city planners, environmental scientists, AI / data scientists, and real estate professionals. (posted April 22)
More information: citybldr.com
Contact: hello@citybldr.com / 877-822-CITY
Also...
- Covid-19 is Forcing Experiments in Communication, Work eCommerce, Health Care, and Education That Have Implications Far Past the Taming of Covid-19. (Excerpts from an April 13 Benedict Evans essay.)
We're currently going through a vast, forced public experiment to find out which bits of human psychology will align with which kinds of technology tools and how much ecommerce will change. Today, over 4bn people have a smartphone - 75% of the earth's adult population. Over 80% of American teenagers have an iPhone. We're all online now.Since the Covid-19 lockdowns began, for example, Zoom has gone from 10m to 200m daily users. Another example of the forced experiments: people have to at least try experiences such as grocery delivery that they would often have dismissed before - that's a 'Green Eggs and Ham' moment.Further, some physical retail just won't be there anymore when we go back outside, and some of the demand that has disappeared for the moment won't come back either.
Finally, you can see that market reset in another way in two big industries that people have spent decades dreaming of moving to digital and to remote - health and education. All this is accelerated by tens of thousands of software engineers who are cooped up at home getting frustrated with their current tech tools and wondering if they can spot some pain point, or mechanic, or small difference to the flow, and solve some opportunity that no-one ever quite realised was there. A lot of companies will be born in nine months.There is a note of caution, however, regarding equity and access. Though the vast majority of us are now online, there are still tens of millions of people in the developed world who are not, mostly (they say) because they don't see the point or perhaps it's because they don't understand the technology because they are older, less capable, or reside on the wrong side of the digital divide.
More information: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2020/4/13/covid-and-forced-experiments
Contact: https://www.ben-evans.com/contact
Communicating to the Public & Tracking Covid-19's Spread
Communicating to the Public & Tracking Covid-19's Spread
1. Communication Tools 2. Maps of Covid-19's Spread
Click Here for 16 Interactive Maps, Charts, and Graphs All in One Place (T4A's Medium page)
Communicating with the Public
- Managing Incoming FAQs from Citizens (Community Connect Labs) - COVID-19 Assistance Chatbot Answer frequently asked questions about resources for assistance with unemployment, childcare, housing, and other existing resources. -- Reduce inbound questions and hold-times for phone lines -- Provide answers to questions quickly, conveniently and confidentially -- Language Access: English, Spanish and other languages upon request -- Robust Reporting: Monitor top questions and number of questions answered (posted May 11)
More information: https://www.communityconnectlabs.com/covid-19-chatbot-for-covid-19-referral
https://www.communityconnectlabs.com/covid-19-communications-solutions-for-government
Contact: perla@communityconnectlabs.com
- * NEW * Managing Incoming Public Inquiries and Delivering Services - Hello Alice currently has solutions to: (1) communicate to a network of more than 4,000 small businesses; (2) tech to better manage incoming inquiries in a very personalized way; (3) distributing millions of dollars to small businesses using smart filtering tools, automated scorecards, and validation tools. They currently run grants programs for KKR, eBay, Mastercard, Verizon, Amazon and more as the back end to their programs. (posted June 18)
More information: helloaclice.com
Contact: carolyn@helloalice.com
- CDC Social Media Toolkit & Sample Messages - provides English and Spanish messages to deliver to citizens.
More information: Eng https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/communication/social-media-toolkit.html#testing
Esp https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/communication/social-media-toolkit-es.html
- Corona Virus Data Resource Hub provides tools for creating visualizations of recent epidemiological data. The data is compiled by John Hopkins University. Organizations can receive a free "Jumpstart Kit" with the complete data set as well as a dashboard template to create specialized visualizations pertinent to the population they are serving. Many organizations are submitting their visualizations back to the Hub for other organizations to reference and share, increasing the library of data visualizations available to the public at large.
More information: https://www.tableau.com/learn/series/getting-started-covid-19-data-hub
Contact: https://www.tableau.com/
- Civic Plus Crisis Communication Portal provides tools for uninterrupted access to governing bodies & public meetings through a suite of tools.. Features include CivicClerk agenda and meeting management software; CP Media, a live and recorded video solution; and CivicReady, which provides text, email, phone call, and mobile app messaging functionality in over 60 languages and integrates with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). (posted April 13)
More information: Civic Plus Portal
Contact: www.civicplus.com/contact-us
- Online Communications & Work - OpenGov provides government-focused tools for crisis communications, virtual town halls, and working online. Cloud software more mission-critical work is key for governments to keep City Hall running when the physical City Hall must be closed. It enables workers to keep working regardless of where they are, which isn't possible with a lot of on-premise and legacy technology that. they are typically saddled with. (posted April 13)
More information: https://opengov.com/covid-19/
Contact: https://opengov.com/contact-us/
lhartman@opengov.com
- Marketplace.city has compiled and validated a number of innovative technology providers offering Covid-19 digital readiness and response kits to help government agencies provide uninterrupted services, crisis communication tools, remote meeting and work solutions, mapping and knowledge sharing all in support of direct communication with constituents. (posted April 20)
More information: https://marketplace.city/cities/covid-19
Contact: hello@marketplace.city
- Countable - The facts you need to know to keep you and your loved ones healthy during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. In this online hub, you'll find info about every element of the outbreak, from prevention and recovery to care and potential vaccines. (posted April 20)
More information: https://www.countable.us/
https://www.countable.us/profiles/fernbrook
https://www.countable.com/covid-19-resources-deck/
Contact: 781-954-0191 / getstarted@countable.com
https://www.countable.com/contact/
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Public Opinion & Misinformation Strategies - Local governments are seeking updated, relevant data on what residents think and need during this crisis, in order to inform their actions and decision making. Zencity gathers data from online public channels where residents are organically sharing their feedback about city related services. This data provides cities and counties with info to sharpen their messaging, improve their services, and navigate the critical policy decisions needed to mitigate this crisis. (posted April 22)
More information: https://zencity.io
` https://zencity.io/local-governments-coronavirus-action-plan/
http://help.zencity.io/en/articles/3819820-covid-19-toolkit
Contact: assaf@zencity.io
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Tracking Local Public Opinion Daily - Elucd.com has developed a tool for state and local leaders to track public sentiment in their area on a daily basis--so they can understand how worried people are, how prepared they feel, where they're getting trusted info, etc. They release free national data at covidattitudes.com, and are working with leaders in NYC, Seattle, DC, and many other cities to give them local data, and have capacity to work with many more (updated June 18)
More information: https://elucd.com
covidattitudes.com
Contact: sujeet@elucd.com
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Zoom Training Resources
More information: https://zoom.us/docs/en-us/covid19.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=postattendee&utm_campaign=COVID19FY21&zcid=3709
- Tools Made Popular by Covid-19 for Working and Connecting With Each Other (updated May 5)
- TikTok has become popular for connecting to younger Americans on Covid-19 issues. Why? Because even if you' ve never heard of it, that's where younger people are. The short-video platform is also providing financial and technical resources.
More information: https://www.tiktok.com/safety/resources/covid-19?lang=en - Around overlays small circular video windows atop your screen so you can instantly communicate with colleagues while most of your desktop stays focused on your actual work. It's born out of frustration with remote work collaboration. The founders discovered that Zoom was "built around decades-old assumptions of what a video call should be. A Zoom video call is basically a telephone connected to a video camera."
More information: https://www.around.co/ - Talkshow offers instant broadcasting radio-style call-in shows.
More information: https://www.jointalkshow.com/ - Discord lets communities spontaneously connect through persistent video, voice, and chat rooms. It's seen a 50% increase in US daily voice users with spikes in shelter-in-place early adopter states like California, New York, New Jersey, and Washington.
More information: https://discordapp.com/ - Bunch, is climbing the charts and going mainstream with its user base shifting to become majority female as they talk for 1.5 million minutes per day. Both Discord and Bunch make it easy to join up with pals and pick a game to play together.
More information: https://bunch.live/
- TikTok has become popular for connecting to younger Americans on Covid-19 issues. Why? Because even if you' ve never heard of it, that's where younger people are. The short-video platform is also providing financial and technical resources.
- Broadband Internet for Emergency Services, Pop-Up Services, and Schools - Cradlepoint, Inc. provides cloud-delivered 4G LTE network solutions for business, service providers, and government organizations. They can help IT teams and those responsible for standing up or expanding wireless networks during the pandemic: Establish a network in minutes at temporary or pop-up locations, including virus screening tents and mobile command centers; provide Internet and VPN connectivity to at-home workers and students with high-bandwidth needs; installing connectivity in school buses to be parked in the community; public safety. Founded in 2006, they have more than 18,000 customers worldwide in retail, financial services, healthcare, transportation, public sector, and other industries. (posted May 5)
More information: https://cradlepoint.com/covid19-response
Contact: 1-855-813-3385 or https://cradlepoint.com/company/contact_us
- Mapping and Tracking Covid-19's Spread
- Cases & Deaths - Johns Hopkins University maintains a comprehensive count of cases and deaths for the United States and the world.
More information: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/
- Testing: Identified Cases, Number of Tests, Where Tests Have Occurred - The Covid Data Tracking Project publishes complete testing data. It was launched out of The Atlantic to fill a major gap in publicly available COVID-19 testing data. Johns Hopkins University maintains a comprehensive case count, but no governmental or institutional source is publishing complete testing data—including not just identified cases, but how many people have been tested, and where. Without this data, we can't make informed decisions or accurately communicate risks. (posted April 13)
More information: https://covidtracking.com
https://covidtracking.com/data
Contact: see website
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- Seeing Current Hotspots in US (NYTimes) - This map shows where the number of new cases is rising and where it is falling in the last 14 days. (posted June 9)
More information: nytimes.com
- Seeing Current Hotspots in US (NYTimes) - This map shows where the number of new cases is rising and where it is falling in the last 14 days. (posted June 9)
- Predicting Future Hotspots: Outbreak and Intensity of Covid-19 Outbreaks (Down to City and County Levels) - Kinsa’s atypical illness early warning system has correctly identified the location and intensity of COVID-19 outbreak epicenters on average 14 days before the first COVID-19 death. However, with social distancing directives implemented across the United States, they have observed a drop in overall illness levels nationwide. These drops coincide with the application of social distancing directives. Many states are relaxing social distancing measures. There is an increasingly urgent need to detect possible COVID-19 resurgence as a result. (posted May10)
More information: https://www.kinsahealth.co/modeling-social-distancing-effects-and-real-time-atypical-illness/
https://healthweather.us/?mode=C.+Atypical
Contact: https://www.kinsahealth.co/contact-us/
- * NEW * Tracking States as They Reopen (Symptoms, Hospitals, Testing): Using the gating criteria provided by the White House, Covid Exit Strategy tracked each state's progress towards its reduction in symptoms and cases, health system readiness, and increased testing. Symptoms: How is the disease spreading? Hospitals: Can the hospitals handle the load? Testing: Is it robust enough? Using sources like the COVID Tracking Project and the CDC they measure how a state is controlling the epidemic. They are a group of public health and crisis experts. With former experience working at the White House, Department of Health and Human Services, and on the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. They are a non-partisan group, having worked across multiple administrations. (posted June 18)
More information: https://www.covidexitstrategy.org
Contact: feedback@covidexitstrategy.org
- Local Hospital Capacity, # of Contacts Traced, Projected Spread (By State, City County, Zip Code): Stanford and Goergetown Universities teamed up with former Google and Dropbox techies to create easy-to-understand Covid-19 tracking site. Covid Act Now is a multidisciplinary team of technologists, epidemiologists, health experts, and public policy leaders working to provide disease intelligence and data analysis on COVID in the U.S. (posted June 9)
More information: https://covidactnow.org
Contact: gov@covidactnow.org (state & local governments)
info@covidactnow.org (general inquiries)
- Predicting Outbreak and Intensity of Covid-19 Outbreaks (Down to City and County Levels): Kinsa’s atypical illness early warning system has correctly identified the location and intensity of COVID-19 outbreak epicenters on average 14 days before the first COVID-19 death. However, with social distancing directives implemented across the United States, they have observed a drop in overall illness levels nationwide. These drops coincide with the application of social distancing directives. Many states are relaxing social distancing measures. There is an increasingly urgent need to detect possible COVID-19 resurgence as a result. (posted May10)
More information: https://www.kinsahealth.co/modeling-social-distancing-effects-and-real-time-atypical-illness/
https://healthweather.us/?mode=C.+Atypical
Kinsa's App
Kinsa's Thermometers
Contact: https://www.kinsahealth.co/contact-us/
- How Fast is It Spreading? - Rt.live is an up-to-date tracker of how fast COVID-19 is spreading in each state and by region and by those with no shelter-in-place policies. It was launched the week of April 13th by Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. "Rt" measures the average number of people who become infected by an infectious person. "As states decide whether and how to open back up, they'll have to manage their infection rate carefully, and we hope dashboards like rt.live will be helpful in doing so," Krieger says. By better illustrating how even small differences in shelter-in-place policy and compliance can exponentially change the severity of the impact of the virus, it could help convince people to stay inside. This kind of tool could also be helpful for determining where it'd be safe to reactivate some businesses, and quickly catch if virality is spiking and strict social distancing needs to be reinstated. (posted April 22)
More information: https://rt.live
Contact: hello@rt.live
A Simple Score Tells How Fast the Virus is Spreading
San Francisco Chronicle May 15, 2020
A single number that defines the state of the coronavirus outbreak is gaining new status: the R0. That’s the reproduction value, pronounced R-naught. It’s an epidemiological number that, in simplest terms, represents how many people an infected individual will transmit the virus to.
An R0 of 2 means that every infected person will infect two others, and those two people will each infect two more, and so on. An R0 of 1 means every person will infect one other, and a disease outbreak will neither grow nor decline. To slow down spread, the R0 needs to drop below 1 ...
“We crank these disease models out all the time. The R0 is just one estimate that emerges as an indication of how different mitigations might be working,” said Shannon Bennett, chief of science at the California Academy of Sciences.
- Have States Flattened the Curve?
This Johns Hopkins University graph shows whether cases of COVID-19 are increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant within each state. It is a 3-day moving average.
- County Level Tracking - Facebook unveiled April 20 county-by-county maps of people with coronavirus symptoms, and says they'll be updated daily throughout the crisis. Facebook Founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg: "Since experiencing symptoms is a precursor to going to the hospital or becoming more seriously ill, these maps could be an important tool for governments and public health officials to make decisions on how to allocate scarce resources like ventilators and PPE, and eventually when it's safe to start reopening society." (posted April 20)
More information: https://covid-survey.dataforgood.fb.com
https://dataforgood.fb.com/docs/covid19/
Axios News Article
Contact: see website - Facebook Data for Good - Facebook has a number of tools and initiatives that can help respond to the pandemic:
- Publicly available tools: (1) High Resolution Population Density Maps and (2) CrowdTangle COVID-19 Live Displays
- Tools for nonprofits & researchers: (1) Disease Prevention Maps and (2) Social Connectedness Index
- Facebook is also a part of the COVID-19 Mobility Data Network, a network of infectious disease epidemiologists at universities around the world working with technology companies to use aggregated mobility data to support the COVID-19 response.
(posted April 29)
Where Americans areStaying at Home the Most
Washington Post May 6, 2020
U.S. residents are beginning to inch out of their homes, according to new cellphone data. But even as states begin to “open up,” more Americans appear to be staying put than sprinting out the door. The peak period of our collective, coronavirus-induced lockdown was the seven-day period ending April 7 when 93% of people kept close to home. State orders are not necessarily dictating everyone's behavior. Regardless, people are not flocking back to their workplaces. Data for this story was provided by SafeGraph, a company that aggregates location data from tens of millions of devices and compares it with building footprints.
- Racial & Ethnic Disparities - The COVID Racial Data Trackeris a collaboration between the COVID Tracking Project and the Antiracist Research & Policy Center. This is the most complete race and ethnicity data on COVID-19 in the US. (posted June 30)
More information: https://covidtracking.com/race
- State-by-State Timeline of State Policies, Cases, and Deaths - This Johns Hopkins University timeline shows the major infection control measures and re-openings undertaken by states alongside the number of new cases and deaths in each state over the same time.
More information: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/state-timeline
- How Much Does Increased Testing Impact the # of Cases?This ProPublica research shows that increases and decreases in positive Covid-19 results does not correlate to the rise in testing alone.
More information: https://www.propublica.org/article/state-coronavirus-data-doesnt-support-trumps-misleading-testing-claims?fbclid=IwAR3PJfrbrxXQ2MXhK6JCI3Jb2tLBZfpF26tMgyiNkNEtuvsH-3MLdHeCRmk
- Worldwide Interactive Map - This county-by-country Facebook map shows COVID-19 symptoms and changes in people’s mobility in the face of various shelter-in-place orders. FB’s “Data for Good”
More information: https://covid-survey.dataforgood.fb.com/?date=2020-06-23&dates=2020-04-14_2020-06-23®ion=WORLD
- Worldwide Death Rates - This Johns Hopkins University chart shows the # of deaths either per 100 confirmed cases or per 100,000 population. The USA has the 9th highest death rate in the world under the population measure (6/26/20).
More information: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
- Worldwide Speed of Infection - This Johns Hopkins University chart shows each country’s growth curve starting on the day that each nation confirmed its 50th case. Cases and deaths are included.
More information: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/cumulative-cases
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Finding People to Do Tracing & Other Public Outreach (The Social Practice) - In many states and counties, contract tracing and other work will require paid staff or highly trained volunteers to conduct hundreds of thousands of conversations via phone and text messaging with community members who have been exposed to COVID-19. The Social Practice uses widely available consumer technology to build and manage remote staff or volunteer teams capable of calling and texting millions of people at a higher volume, higher quality and lower cost than traditional vendor-based call centers and constituent contact operations. (posted April 24)
More information: https://thesocialpractice.org/
Contact: Becky Bond, co-founder becky@thesocialpractice.co / 415.595.0040
Medical Technologies for Telehealth, Testing, Contact Tracing, and More
Medical Tech for Public Leaders
1. Telehealth 2. Survivors / Blood Plasma Collection 3. Testing 4. Monitoring Patients
5. Contact Tracing 6. Finding PPE 7. Data Sources
TELEHEALTH / MEDICAL SERVICES OVER THE INTERNET
- National Consortium of Telehealth Resources - Telehealth can help address COVID-19 and other pandemic situations by limiting exposure to infection for vulnerable populations and health care workers. Telehealth can also expand the reach of resources to communities that have limited access to needed services. This allows patients to receive health services away from settings where potential for contracting infectious diseases are high, such as hospitals, health clinic waiting rooms, private practices, etc. The Telehealth Resource Centers (TRCs) have compiled and developed resources specific to their regions. (posted May 11)
More information: https://www.telehealthresourcecenter.org/covid-19-resources/
Contact: https://www.telehealthresourcecenter.org/contact/
- Digital Health & Telemedicine Directory - The directory tracks telemedicine and digital health solutions including remote monitoring services, mental health services, and medical devices designed for health care at a distance. (posted April 13)
More information: https://www.cta.tech/Landing-Pages/COVID-19-Digital-Health-Resources
Contact: CTA@CTA.tech / 703-907-7600
- Youth & Families Mental Health - The Child Mind Institute has a wealth of resources to support families coping during this time. They note that your children may be feeling more anxious these days. Recommended by San Francisco school district. (posted April 25)
More information: https://childmind.org/
https://www.facebook.com/ChildMindInstitute
https://twitter.com/ChildMindInst
Contact: 202-318-3118 or see website
- Mental Health (Community Connect Labs) - Connect individuals to mental health assistance based on their needs and preferences. Enable individuals to request call-backs from caseworkers. -- Automated check-ins: Easily check-in on at-risk individuals to see if they need help -- Provide personalized referral: Match individuals to resources based on their language, location, and preferences -- Automated follow-up with individuals to ensure they got the help they needed -- Language Access: English, Spanish and other languages upon request (posted May 11)
More information: https://www.communityconnectlabs.com/covid-19-mental-health-referral-and-follow-up
https://www.communityconnectlabs.com/covid-19-communications-solutions-for-government
"Illinois Launches Calm4Calm to Provide Mental Healthcare for Residents"
Contact: perla@communityconnectlabs.com
How to Use Telemedicine While Sheltering in Place
San Francisco Chronicle March 31, 2020
Q: How and when should I use telemedicine?
A: Doctors say that telehealth should be the default right now, but it’s not a mandate. Patients can visit a doctor or hospital if necessary.
Q: How much does it cost and what does insurance cover?
A: Costs differ depending on your provider and insurance. Some insurance companies are easing up on telehealth fees.
Q: Who is doing telemedicine?
A: It’s safe to assume that every hospital and health care provider is offering telehealth — most in a variety of methods, including chatting, phone, and video calls.
BLOOD PLASMA DONORS / COVID-19 SURVIVORS
- Survivor Corps - Grassroots movement. Covid-19 Survivors. Support medical & scientific research. Convalescent Plasma Donation. (posted May 11)
More information: https://www.survivorcorps.com
https://twitter.com/Survivor_Corps
https://www.facebook.com/groups/COVID19survivorcorps/
Contact: SurvivorCorpsHQ@gmail.com\
- Seeking Plasma Donors: Covid-19 Expanded Access Program (Mayo Clinic) - Responding to the unprecedented challenge of fighting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the U.S. Government is supporting a national Expanded Access Program to collect and provide convalescent plasma to patients in need across the country. Plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients contains antibodies that may help fight the disease. Working collaboratively with industry, academic, and government partners, Mayo Clinic will serve as the lead institution for the program. (posted May 11)
More information: https://www.uscovidplasma.org
Contact: uscovidplasma@mayo.edu
TESTING FOR VIRUS & ANTIBODIES
- CDC & FDA Testing Center Locator & Symptom Checker - The CDC displays information for COVID-19 testing of current infections (the virus) and past infections (anitbody tests). They also have an online COVID-19 symptom checker. Google also offers lots of resources for any Covid-19 search. (updated May 4)
More information:
CDC Covid-19 Homepage - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
FDA Approved Test Kits & Labs - https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/emergency-situations-medical-devices/emergency-use-authorizations#covid19ivd
CDC Testing Overview - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing/index.html
Testing for Current Infection (Virus) - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing/diagnostic-testing.html
Testing for Past Infection (Antibodies) - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing/serology-overview.html
Self-Check Tests - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html
How to Prioritize Tests - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/testing.html
Communicating via Social Media - https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/communication/social-media-toolkit.html#testing
Google Resources - https://www.google.com/covid19/
- Johns Hopkins Testing Hub - The COVID-19 testing picture in the U.S. is far from easy to understand, given the disparate agencies and public and private health organizations involved. Johns Hopkins, building on its excellent work developing COVID-19 case tracking and basic information resources, in late April launched the COVID-19 Testing Insights Initiative that breaks down what kinds of tests are available, as well as where they’re being administered in the U.S., and in what volume. (posted May 1)
More information: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing
https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/29/johns-hopkins-launches-covid-19-testing-hub-to-provide-public-access-to-testing-data/
https://www.google.com/covid19/
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/communication/social-media-toolkit.html#testing
- Testing Site Locator (Castlight) - Castlight Health, the health navigation company, has developed the most comprehensive testing site finder in the US. It covers all 50 states, and is constantly being updated. The company is offering it to organizations to embed on their sites for their users. The directory is powering the testing site finders of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Ford Motor Company, and is integrated into Google search and maps results. (posted April 29)
More information: https://www.castlighthealth.com/
Contact: ken@crosscutstrategies.com
- First Home Test Kit for Virus - LabCorp got FDA emergency approval the week of April 20 for the first coronavirus test that allows people to collect their own samples at home, using a nasal swab, before mailing them off to a lab for analysis. The “Pixel” kits ($119) will initially be used for health care workers and first responders who may have been exposed to the virus or have symptoms. (posted April 21)
More information: https://www.pixel.labcorp.com/covid-19https://www.facebook.com/PixelbyLabcorp/
https://www.labcorp.com/coronavirus-disease-covid-19
FAQ: https://support.pixel.labcorp.com/hc/en-us/sections/360007814854-COVID-19-Test-At-Home-Kit-
Politico Article 4/21: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/21/at-home-coronavirus-testing-kit-198042
Contact: https://www.pixel.labcorp.com/at-home-test-kits/covid-19-test
- Testing for Virus via "Project Baseline" by Google's Verily - This is a community based testing program in collaboration with Stanford University and the State of California, to expand free access to COVID-19 screening and testing in areas with a high volume of known cases. There is a testing guide available for other cities and states to develop their own community based testing programs. The work follows guidelines provided by federal and state public health authorities. This guide is adaptable for local clinical operations, environmental health and safety teams, and their state and local authorities. (posted April 21)
More information: https://www.projectbaseline.com/study/covid-19/
https://www.projectbaseline.com/covid-19-guide/
Contact: contact@projectbaseline.com
- Finding FDA Approved Antibody Tests - The Food & Drug Administration is dealing with a flood of inaccurate coronavirus antibody tests after it allowed more than 120 manufacturers and labs to bring tests to market without an agency review. (posted April 27)
More information: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/emergency-situations-medical-devices/emergency-use-authorizations#covid19ivd
https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/counterterrorism-and-emerging-threats/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19
Unreliable Anitbody Tests Flood Market (Politico April 27)
Antibody Testing Brings Cautious Hope (WebMD April 27)
- Testing for Covid-19 That Does Not Involve Individuals - Patient testing is limited, we need more ways to track COVID-19. In collaboration with researchers at MIT, Harvard, and Brigham and Women's Hospital BioBot has launched a pro bono program to map COVID-19 across the U.S. They are a team of biologists, epidemiologists, data scientists, urban planners, and engineers. One way to test, for example, is through sewage sampling. This data could give communities a dynamic map of the virus as it spreads to new places. (posted May 11)
More information: https://www.biobot.io/covid19
Nature Article on Municipal Sewage Testing
Contact: https://www.biobot.io/covid19
TRACKING & MONITORING PATIENTS
- Public Health: Engagement, Monitoring, Contact Tracting (Salesforce) - Quickly assess and triage patients, provide ongoing engagement and monitoring, and protect communities from widespread impact with manual contact tracing. With Salesforce's Emergency Response Management for Public Health solution you can: Increase patient access to care with digital self-service; Deliver smart, personalized patient care at scale during any crisis; and Quickly understand which people and locations are at risk of infection through manual contract tracing. (posted July 9)
More information: https://www.salesforce.com/products/emergency-response/overview/?d=cta-body-promo-94 - Tracking Patients & Self-Reporting of Drug Therapy Tests - Silicon Valley titan Oracle has built and donated to the US government a COVID-19 Therapeutic Learning System that allows physicians and patients to record the effectiveness of promising COVID-19 drug therapies. This was the result of a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Department of Health and Human Services. It consists of a mobile-ready app for doctors and clinicians to enter information about their patients, and for patients to report their experiences with drug therapies on a daily basis. The app, launced in mid-March, has registration pages for physicians to enter their credentials, records for their patients, and for practitioners and patients to update daily progress data on patients taking their meds. Aggregating the data, the app provides real-time dashboards on patient status. The goal of the app is getting an aggregated picture of what meds are working, how, and under what scenarios, and what meds are not. (posted May 5)
More information: https://covid19.oracle.com
https://www.oracle.com/corporate/covid-19-tls-faq.html
https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/oracle-records-effectiveness-covid-19-drugs-040120.html
https://www.oracle.com/corporate/covid-19.html
Contact: Jessica Moore, Corporate Communications < jessica.moore@oracle.com >
- Monitoring Quarantined Citizens - Through a tool created by Polka Dot Sky Software, Inc., your community can setup an automated monitoring program to stay connected to every person who is quarantined, even if those numbers increase rapidly. Calling quarantined individuals daily, and collecting data about their condition and symptoms, helps you monitor large numbers of people. This frees your medical professionals and support staff to focus on helping those who need you the most. The company has done this for Germany and for the State of Wasington. (posted May 5)
More information: https://blog.polkadotskysoftware.com/blog/covid-19-quarantine-monitoring
Contact: 866-GO-POLKA or < LearnMore@PolkaDotSkySoftware.com >
- Forecasting & Mapping Covid-19 (Carnegie Mellon Univ.) - Launched in late April, Carngie Mellon's COVIDcast System displays indicators related to COVID-19 activity level across the U.S. using five maps. These indicators are derived from a variety of anonymized, aggregated data sources. Epidemiological forecasting is critically needed for decision making by public health officials, commercial and non-commercial institutions, and the general public. The Delphi group at Carnegie Mellon University focuses on developing the technological capability of epi-forecasting, and its role in decision making, both public and private. Our long term vision is to make epidemiological forecasting as universally accepted and useful as weather forecasting is today. (posted April 30)
More information: https://delphi.cmu.edu
https://covidcast.cmu.edu
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2020/april/cmu-unveils-covidcast-maps.html
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2020/april/facebook-survey-covid.html
https://cmu-delphi.github.io/delphi-epidata/api/
Contact: Roni Rosenfeld, Lead Researcher / roni@cs.cmu.edu
Ryan Tibshirani, Lead Researcher / ryantibs@cmu.edu
CONTACT TRACING
A Scramble for Coronavirus Apps That Do No Harm
New York Times March & June 2020
Dozens of tracking apps for smartphones are being used or developed to help contain the coronavirus pandemic. But there are worries about privacy and hastily written software. At their core, the apps are intended to gather information about the movements of people who have tested positive for the virus, alert others who might have crossed their paths, and in some cases make sure infected people stay quarantined. They use smartphone technologies, such as GPS and Bluetooth, to collect and share the data, which make them agile and easy to use but also provide an enticing target for hackers or government surveillance.
- Online Training for Contact Tracing (Johns Hopkins Univ. & Bloomberg Philanthropies) - Johns Hopkins Univ. estimated in May that the United States requires a new workforce of at least 100,000 contact tracers to limit the spread of COVID-19 and begin to reopen the economy. They developed the contact tracing course that is available for registration on the Coursera platform. It is open to anyone in the world, whether they are interested in becoming a contact tracer or just want to understand the process. (posted May 21)
More information: https://www.coursera.org/learn/covid-19-contact-tracing?edocomorp=covid-19-contact-tracing
Contact Tracing Fact Sheet
- Contact Tracing Apps and Maps Using Mobile Phones -- These phone apps alert users when they have been around someone who has a confirmed case of COVID-19. Countries are rushing to develop apps to give a detailed picture of the risk of catching the coronavirus, as the chain of infection is proving hard to break because it can be spread by those showing no symptoms. Your smartphone would register when you’ve come into close contact with other people. If one of those people later reports Covid-19 symptoms to a public health authority, your phone would receive an alert about the diagnosis. It works a bit like exchanging contact information with everyone you meet. (posted April 28)
- Johns Hopkins Contact Tracing Fact Sheet - Technologies can act as a force multiplier so that 1 worker can connect with many more people in the community. They can also enable contact tracing without exposing workers to infection.
More information: https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/resources/COVID-19/COVID-19-fact-sheets/200408-contact-tracing-factsheet.pdf
- Johns Hopkins Contact Tracing Fact Sheet - Technologies can act as a force multiplier so that 1 worker can connect with many more people in the community. They can also enable contact tracing without exposing workers to infection.
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- MIT's Contact Tracing Project (June 18) - PACT’s mission is to enhance contact tracing in pandemic response by designing exposure detection functions in personal digital communication devices that have maximal public health utility while preserving privacy. The PACT effort began in mid-March 2020.
More information: https://pact.mit.edu
- MIT's Contact Tracing Project (June 18) - PACT’s mission is to enhance contact tracing in pandemic response by designing exposure detection functions in personal digital communication devices that have maximal public health utility while preserving privacy. The PACT effort began in mid-March 2020.
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- Facebook Data & Maps on Changes in Movement of Americans
More information: https://visualization.covid19mobility.org
- Facebook Data & Maps on Changes in Movement of Americans
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- Apple & Google Partnership to Trace Contacts of Those with Covid-19 (announced early April, available mid-May) - Apple & Google are joining forces to build an opt-in contact-tracing tool using Bluetooth technology that could help public health officials track the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Their approach has created conversations on privacy and government surveillance.
More information: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/10/21216675/apple-google-covid-coronavirus-contact-tracing-app
- Apple & Google Partnership to Trace Contacts of Those with Covid-19 (announced early April, available mid-May) - Apple & Google are joining forces to build an opt-in contact-tracing tool using Bluetooth technology that could help public health officials track the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Their approach has created conversations on privacy and government surveillance.
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- Australian Government Contact Tracing App (April 26) - Two million Australians downloaded a coronavirus contact tracing app within hours of it being released by the government. The Australian version is based on one introduced in Singapore.
More information: #COVIDSafeapp
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-04-26/australia-launches-controversial-covid-19-tracking-app-as-some-states-start-easing-rules
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_YyJaUs-iQ
- Australian Government Contact Tracing App (April 26) - Two million Australians downloaded a coronavirus contact tracing app within hours of it being released by the government. The Australian version is based on one introduced in Singapore.
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- Germany Moves Toward "Decentralized" Tracing App (April 27) - Germany's app efforts move it into line with a proposal by Apple and Google, who said in April they would develop new tools to support decentralised contact tracing.
More information:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-europe-tech/germany-flips-on-smartphone-contact-tracing-backs-apple-and-google-idUSKCN22807J
- Germany Moves Toward "Decentralized" Tracing App (April 27) - Germany's app efforts move it into line with a proposal by Apple and Google, who said in April they would develop new tools to support decentralised contact tracing.
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- British National Health Service Moves Toward "Centralized" App (April 27) - The UK has opted for a "centralised model" to achieve alert people using their cell phones that they might be infects. This means that the matching process, which works out which phones to send alerts to - happens on a computer server. This contrasts with Apple and Google's "decentralised" approach - where the matches take place on users' handsets.
More information: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52441428
- British National Health Service Moves Toward "Centralized" App (April 27) - The UK has opted for a "centralised model" to achieve alert people using their cell phones that they might be infects. This means that the matching process, which works out which phones to send alerts to - happens on a computer server. This contrasts with Apple and Google's "decentralised" approach - where the matches take place on users' handsets.
- Contact Tracing Using Mobile Phones (Covid Watch) - This is a volunteer led effort of researchers, software engineers, and public health experts who have developed a privacy-preserving mobile app to reduce the spread of COVID-19 through automatic decentralized contact tracing using Bluetooth proximity networks. All data collected is voluntary and fully anonymized. All code is transparent. It is open source and is easily reviewed, reproduced, and used anywhere. The app could be installed by anyone with a Bluetooth-capable smartphone, alerting them to their risk of having been in contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19, and helping them to protect themselves and others. (posted April 20)
More information: covid-watch.org
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Kh4_Q_tmyRh0-v452wiul9oQAiTRj8AdZ5vcOJum9Y/edit#
Contact: contact@covid-watch.org
- Salesforce Contact Tracing Resources (announced early May) - Capture the most relevant information, investigate possible points of infection transmission, and take immediate action to minimize spread. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff credited Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo for inspiring the company to develop a newly launched batch of tools to help businesses reopen their workplaces during the global health crisis.
More information: https://www.salesforce.com/products/contact-tracing/overview/?d=cta-body-promo-112
In the News: CNBC Story (May 4, 2020)
- Contact Tracing (Community Connect Labs) - Enables staff and volunteers to more efficiently collect data and to enable patients to self-report data via secure, HIPAA compliant channels. -- Reduce man-hours needed by automated text messaging for interview scheduling, follow-ups for data collection, assistance for food and other services - check-ins and reminders to patients -- Secure HIPAA compliant CRM database - used by over 30,000 organizations - designed for patient data tracking -- Secure web form for patients to provide on-going self reporting -- Simple and quick volunteer/staff training --- Securely and easily accessible for volunteers and staff working from home. --- Intuitive, easy to learn user-interface for volunteers and staff. --- Easily add new known contacts of patients, their symptoms, known contacts, locations and more. Keep track of all new known contacts, relationships and locations. -- Robust reporting, live, built-in dashboard -- Easily customizable for changes in requirements (posted May 11)
More information: https://www.communityconnectlabs.com/covid-19-communications-solutions-for-government
https://www.communityconnectlabs.com/
Contact: perla@communityconnectlabs.com
Where Americans are Staying at Home the Most
Washington Post May 6, 2020
U.S. residents are beginning to inch out of their homes, according to new cellphone data. But even as states begin to “open up,” more Americans appear to be staying put than sprinting out the door. The peak period of our collective, coronavirus-induced lockdown was the seven-day period ending April 7 when 93% of people kept close to home. State orders are not necessarily dictating everyone's behavior. Regardless, people are not flocking back to their workplaces. Data for this story was provided by SafeGraph, a company that aggregates location data from tens of millions of devices and compares it with building footprints.
- Tracking People’s Movements Using Aggregated Data (Covid19 Mobility Data Network) - This is a network of infectious disease epidemiologists at universities around the world working with technology companies to use aggregated mobility data to support the COVID-19 response. Our goal is to provide daily updates to decision-makers at the state and local levels on how well social distancing interventions are working, using anonymized, aggregated data sets from mobile devices, along with analytic support for interpretation. Their partners include universities, cities and states, and dozens of researchers. (posted April 29)
More information: https://www.covid19mobility.org
Brookings Report: How Data Science Can Ease the Epidemic (April 27)
Contact: contact@covid19mobility.org
- Covid19 Research Using Mobile Phones (Govt/University Collaborations)
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- Eureka: University of California - San Francisco - Eureka is a non-profit resource built by researchers at the UCSF with support from the National Institutes of Health. By providing researchers with tools to mobilize studies and engage participants in ground-breaking discoveries, Eureka pushes the boundaries of traditional research. (posted April 13)
Contact: http://info.eurekaplatform.org/contact
- Eureka: University of California - San Francisco - Eureka is a non-profit resource built by researchers at the UCSF with support from the National Institutes of Health. By providing researchers with tools to mobilize studies and engage participants in ground-breaking discoveries, Eureka pushes the boundaries of traditional research. (posted April 13)
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- Hippocratic Project: University of Washington - UW Medicine is recruiting people nationwide to test out a smartphone app that's intended to predict outbreaks of infections such as cold, flu, or other virus outbreaks. The app is a project funded by the Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which makes investments in technologies that support national security. (posted April 13)
More information: https://newsroom.uw.edu/news/uw-medicine-recruiting-app-predict-next-outbreak
- Hippocratic Project: University of Washington - UW Medicine is recruiting people nationwide to test out a smartphone app that's intended to predict outbreaks of infections such as cold, flu, or other virus outbreaks. The app is a project funded by the Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which makes investments in technologies that support national security. (posted April 13)
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- Tracking People’s Movements (Descartes Labs, Inc.) - By combining multiple data sources, Descartes Labs can observe motions of everyday life — going to school, commuting to work, heading to the park — to see patterns comparing activity today with activity six months ago, or last week until today. (posted April 22)
More information: https://medium.com/
descarteslabs-team/covid-19- the-road-to-economic-and- social-recovery-6638866e3e4c
https://www.descarteslabs.com
FINDING PPE
- Finding PPE
- Univ. of Pittsburgh - Our face shield was designed to meet the growing need for locally manufactured PPE in the current pandemic situation.
More information: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kq4yI5qcNT4mQvI8Yl7W875CQ7Ixjv6Zy9HegUxD2xI/edit - University of Wisconsin - This Is a site created to connect organizations in need of face shields with those making them.
More information: https://making.engr.wisc.edu/shield/ - HelpfulEngineering.org - We are an open community of volunteers without a commercial purpose. Applying unused engineering and manufacturing resources, we can help the world cope with the threat of COVID-19.
- Omie, Inc. - This group has, among other things:
Top tier, FDA-approved suppliers in China
Two well-established teams on the ground in China
Full financing of all purchase orders and/or deposits into escrow
Top tier law firm that deals with FDA and US Customs
One of the world's largest freight forwarding companies handling door-to-door logistics for our buyers
Letters of guarantees from suppliers
More information: https://www.omiear.com
Contact: oitum@omiear.com / (202) 615-5316 - Open Innovation Coalition - The San Francisco based Coalition, launched April 1, is an initiative to collect and open source manufacturing know-how so retailers can produce personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical workers. Participating companies... contribute to a collection of raw materials that can be used to make PPE; exchange patterns and templates to produce in-demand medical gear; pool manufacturing capabilities to speed up PPE production; distribute completed PPE to hospitals and frontline workers in need
More information: https://rothys.com/blog/sustainability/articles/how-were-supporting-our-community
Contact: openinnovation@rothys.com
- Univ. of Pittsburgh - Our face shield was designed to meet the growing need for locally manufactured PPE in the current pandemic situation.
COLLECTING, ANALYZING, and ACCESSING COVID-19 DATA
- Aggregating Testing Data - The Covid Data Tracking Project publishes complete testing data. It was launched out of The Atlantic to fill a major gap in publicly available COVID-19 testing data. Johns Hopkins University maintains a comprehensive case count, but no governmental or institutional source is publishing complete testing data—including not just identified cases, but how many people have been tested, and where. Without this data, we can't make informed decisions or accurately communicate risks. (posted April 22)
More information: https://covidtracking.com
https://covidtracking.com/data
Contact: see website
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Aggregating Data Sources - Transpara is collecting and sanitizing public data sources, finding errors in them, and have published a public dashboard that is updated as new data arrives. Beyond just cases and deaths by geography, they look at growth rates, per capita metrics, population density, etc. and focus on more obvious ways to view the data. This is a free service. (posted April 22)
More information: https://live.transpara.com/Covid19
Contact: robert.hylton@transpara.com
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Aggregated Official Data from States - The Coronavirus Public Health Initiative site provides a record of official data from US government websites for the 50 states and DC. All data provided here are direct crawls of state government websites. These are the officially reported numbers. Unlike other coronavirus data sites, we do not rely on news or human crowd-sourced data. This information is available either in aggregated or sortable form in an api or csv tool. This tool can be used to compare state data in whole or in part. (posted May 11)
More information: https://coronavirusapi.com
Coin Desk Article
MIT Media Lab Video
Contact: coronavirusapi@googlegroups.com
- County Level Tracking - Facebook unveiled April 20 county-by-county maps of people with coronavirus symptoms, and says they'll be updated daily throughout the crisis. Facebook Founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg: "Since experiencing symptoms is a precursor to going to the hospital or becoming more seriously ill, these maps could be an important tool for governments and public health officials to make decisions on how to allocate scarce resources like ventilators and PPE, and eventually when it's safe to start reopening society.” (posted April 22)
More information: https://covid-survey.dataforgood.fb.com
axios.com/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-maps-coronavirus-c82740a6-7364-4fc1-8ed3-efe1cb49e7a8.html
Contact: see website
- Speed of Covid-19 Spread - Rt.live is an up-to-date tracker of how fast COVID-19 is spreading in each state and by region and by those with no shelter-in-place policies. It was launched the week of April 13th by Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. “Rt” measures the average number of people who become infected by an infectious person. “As states decide whether and how to open back up, they’ll have to manage their infection rate carefully, and we hope dashboards like rt.live will be helpful in doing so,” Krieger says. By better illustrating how even small differences in shelter-in-place policy and compliance can exponentially change the severity of the impact of the virus, it could help convince people to stay inside. This kind of tool could also be helpful for determining where it’d be safe to reactivate some businesses, and quickly catch if virality is spiking and strict social distancing needs to be reinstated. (posted April 22)
More information: https://rt.live
Contact: hello@rt.live
- Corona Virus Data Resource Hub provides tools for creating visualizations of recent epidemiological data. The data is compiled by John Hopkins University. Organizations can receive a free "Jumpstart Kit" with the complete data set as well as a dashboard template to create specialized visualizations pertinent to the population they are serving. Many organizations are submitting their visualizations back to the Hub for other organizations to reference and share, increasing the library of data visualizations available to the public at large. (posted April 13)
More information: https://www.tableau.com/learn/series/getting-started-covid-19-data-hub
Contact: https://www.tableau.com/
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Finding People to Do Tracing & Other Public Outreach (The Social Practice) - In many states and counties, contract tracing and other work will require paid staff or highly trained volunteers to conduct hundreds of thousands of conversations via phone and text messaging with community members who have been exposed to COVID-19. The Social Practice uses widely available consumer technology to build and manage remote staff or volunteer teams capable of calling and texting millions of people at a higher volume, higher quality and lower cost than traditional vendor-based call centers and constituent contact operations. (posted April 24)
More information:
Johns Hopkins Memo on Workforce Needs - https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/emergency-situations-medical-devices/emergency-use-authorizations#covid19ivd
Social Practice Workforce FInder - https://thesocialpractice.org - Becky Bond, Co-Founder becky-at-thesocialpractice-dot-co / 415.595.0040
Coronavirus Data in the U.S. Is Terrible, and Here’s Why
CityLab May 1, 2020
click here for the full article
For health departments, it can be challenging to stay on top of the numbers. This is especially true in the U.S., which lacks shared standards for Covid-19 data across states and counties. While it’s impossible to readjust the entire country’s data structure amid a pandemic, health departments nationwide can publish more complete metrics, following the advice of the COVID Tracking Project and trying to stick to its checklist. Covid-19 moves through the population with intensity, and we need the same level of commitment to move the data with the same speed and intensity, so we can make rapid decisions.
Remote Learning / Home Education / Homeschooling
Tech for Home Education and Remote Learning
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US Department of Education Links
Department of Defense: Learn about careers in STEM fields
Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics: Kids' Zone
Department of Energy: Games and Activities; Virtual Field Trips to National Energy Labs
Environmental Protection Agency: Games, Quizzes, and Videos about the Environment
The Library of Congress: Presentations and Activities to Help Students Learn about History
NASA: Interactive Lessons about Space, Earth, Solar System and Universe; Lessons from Astronauts about Living in Space; STEM Activities for Students of All Ages
The Kennedy Center: Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems; Tour the Kennedy Center with The Pigeon
The Smithsonian: Free Smithsonian STEM Games and Simulations; Meet the Animals of the National Zoo; 3D Exhibits and Virtual Tours; Smithsonian Magazine Ten Museums You Can Virtually Visit; The Museum of Natural History Virtual Tour; Digital Smithsonian American Art Museum; Distance Learning Resources
NOAA: Use Real-Time Ocean Data to Explore the Environment
USGS: Learn from Home About Physical science, Geography and Maps
(posted April 26)
- Facebook Resources
(posted April 26)
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Google's "Teach from Home" Education Hub - Tools and advice for teachers, schools, and families. Teach from Home is a Google-led initiative that gives you lots to get started. The tools are free and secure and designed to enable collaborative teaching and learning -- anywhere, at any time, on any device. (posted May 5)
More information: https://teachfromhome.google/intl/en/?utm_source=politico&utm_medium=paid-media&utm_campaign=kof_5.6&dclid=CNHGiZ-BoOkCFcmGwAodINsLyw
Contact: G-Suite for Education
Subscribe for Updates
- Remote Learning Resources (edited June 29)
- Education.com for At-Home Learning (all ages)
- Study.com for At-Home Learning (all ages)
- Khan Academy (all ages)
- Amazing Educational Resources via Google (all ages)
- ABCMouse (preschool thru 2nd)
- HooplaDigital.com (reading & listening from a digital library)
- Art Hub for Kids (on YouTube)
- Mystery Science
- California Academy of Sciences
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- 62 Tours of America's National Parks - Just because you can’t physically get out and go for a hike doesn’t mean that you can’t still explore some natural beauty. There are some excellent (and free) virtual tours of our incredible national parks just a click away.
- Big Collection of Online Lessons & Activities - ISTE & EdSurge have curated a list of free products offered by companies and organizations to support learning during extended school closures.
- Wide Open School (via Common Sense Media) - Find family-friendly activities with this free collection of the best online learning experiences for kids curated by the editors at Common Sense.
- Fullstack Academy - an online coding and career development bootcamp, is offering a free coding bootcamp prep course for two upcoming cohorts. The remote learning course will cover specific coding and JavaScript concepts.
- Yumi - a science-based childhood meal delivery startup, has created a free children’s book to explain COVID-19 to little ones. Snoop Dogg even tweeted about it.
- Online Safety & Good Digital Parenting (posted May 10)
- Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) - Find guides, tools and resources for online safety and good digital parenting.
- ConnectSafely.org - Find research-based safety tips, parents’ guidebooks, advice, news and twice-weekly webcasts on all aspects of tech use and policy.
- National PTA - Find resources on social and emotional support, learning at home and healthy habits from National PTA.
- Commons Sense Media - See below for many resources.
- "Digital Backpacks" Learning Apps Recommended by San Francisco Unified School District - SFUSD has researched dozens of learning apps and other resources for teachers, parents, and students. (posted May 12)
More information: https://www.sfusd.edu/learning/resources-learning/continuity-learning/digital-backpack
- Lists of Educational Resources by Subject at "Amazing Educational Resources" - This is an educator community to share the good, bad, and ugly about the many teacher resources on the internet. (posted May 12)
More information: https://www.amazingeducationalresources.com
https://www.facebook.com/groups/445786889466638
Contact: amazingeducationalresources@gmail.com
- Common Sense Media - "You know your kids. We know media and tech." From a very young age, kids use technology at home and at school to connect with friends and family and to document their lives and create digital content of their own. With more and more of life happening online, what catches kids' attention isn't always what's best for them, and what companies do with their personal information isn't always clear. Common Sense Media provides families and teachers expert reviews, objective advice, helpful tools, and more. (posted April 30)
More information: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/our-mission
https://www.commonsense.org/education/
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/resources-for-families-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic- Common Sense Media rates movies, TV shows, books, and more
- Common Sense Education supports K–12 schools with everything educators need to empower the next generation of digital citizens.
- Covid-19 Resources
Wide Open Schools
Find family-friendly activities with this free collection of the best online learning experiences for kids.
Media recommendations for entertainment
Hand-picked, age-appropriate media suggestions to keep the whole family engaged.Resources for at-home learning
Tools to help parents and caregivers keep kids focused and learning at home.Stress-management resources
- De-stress together with meditation apps for kids and families.
- Get the blood flowing and elevate the mood with these 25 dance games (you might need to buy a special control from Amazon).
- Apps, websites, and video games that inspire running, jumping, and more to stay active.
- Instagram Live Stories - Lots of creative people are doing creative things for kids stuck at home. (posted April 30)
- @mo.willems.studio - doodling every day at 10 am with the PIGEON, PIGGIE, and GERALD!
- @wendymac - drawing lesson every morning at 10 am
- @macbarnett reading his children’s books every day at noon
- @oliverjeffers reading kids’ books every day at 11
- @carsonellis is doing a daily art assignment - www.carsonellis.com
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Distance Learning Resources via Smart Cities Council - Education tech company SMART has created distance learning tutorials and live online webinars to help navigate remote learning. They are offering their software for free during the pandemic. (posted May 5)
More information: https://www.smarttech.com/en/distance-learning/webinar?utm_content=128204526&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&hss_channel=lcp-166007
https://www.smarttech.com/en/distance-learning/resources
https://go.smarttech.com/en/slsanywhere
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Communicating with University Students During Pandemic - EdSights, a company that focuses on reducing college dropout,has a free texting tool that universities can use to support students:
- Send clear and immediate information to students on university changes and operations as the situation evolves.
- Use our framework to identify students who have been affected by the pandemic and need immediate help.
- Use our pre-built scripts to promote health and wellness.
- Ensure that students follow best practices and have access to information from CDC, WHO, etc.
- The chatbot takes ~ 2 hours to set up, it can be launched remotely and does not require help from IT. (posted May 1)
More information: https://www.edsights.io/covid-19
https://www.edsights.io
- Presentation: "Crisis Mode Education: How to Make the Most of Learning in a Global Pandemic" - Brazilian-born Jos Dirkx is with Singularity University and BeeNova. She offers that priority skills for the future are "critical thinking, creativity, collaboration all differentiate us from the machines we are building." The pandemic, she says, challenges many people's self-worth because identifying with school and work are a measure of personal value. Between traditional learning sessions, Jos strongly recommends interspersing a half hour of walking outside, a half hour of playing, a half hour of art, and half hours of other things like creative building or creating videos. Integrating technology should adapt to the local environment. For example, if there's no high-speed broadband, can a mobile phone or traditional hard line phone be a tool? (posted April 30)
More information: Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eQtTsprSW
About Jos Dirkx - https://josdirkx.com
Contact: hi@josdirkx.com
Your Ideas
Silicon Valley Coronavirus Ideas for Mayors & Governors
We also want to know what ideas you have for mayors, governors, and the executives at the National Governors Association and National League of Cities. Please fill out this Google form or send an email to t4a@t4a.org with your thoughts.
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- Q1 Are there organizations or people in the tech world, especially Silicon Valley, that are already working to collect this kind of tech-related info? We don't need to recreate the wheel. We can partner with ongoing work to avoid redundancy. Contact information would be great.
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- Q2 How can we utilize the technology to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and the recovery that will come afterward? These ideas should be things that in the short term require no significant personnel or resource commitment by governments because public officials are already overwhelmed.
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- Q3 Open-ended response. Got any additional thoughts/ideas/comments/questions that can support the work of cities and states?
