Volunteers create world's fastest supercomputer to combat coronavirus

Facebook collects data from people that choose to share their location with the app, and have started sharing it with various researchers who are trying to track the spread of the novel coronavirus. They share the data anonymously, so as to avoid the privacy issues they’ve faced in the past, and researchers aggregate “the signals into a picture of flows of people” to track connectivity and movement. Beyond researchers, nonprofits are also using it to help disseminate medical resources to highly affected areas.

Princeton University's Empirical Studies of Conflict Project launched a tracking effort to document COVID-19 disinformation worldwide. Created by a network of students tapping into fact-checking sites and other social media and internet sources, the data set taking shape (and, with more than 800 entries in its first three months, already accessible online) serves as a resource for researchers, historians, journalists, and the public in the battle against rumors, conspiracy theories, fake cures, propaganda, and other disinformation surrounding the pandemic.

At the University of Washington, researchers from the school's school of protein design created a computer game that allows users to fold proteins. This game, which is open to anyone, is being used to crowdsource possibilities that could be used to develop antiviral drugs that would work against the novel coronavirus.

To better trace the spread of coronavirus, Singapore and China have been using apps that collect data about citizens' whereabouts and let people know if they've potentially been in contact with someone who has been diagnosed with the virus. Now, similar apps are being piloted in New York and Massachusettes in an attempt to better "understand more about the clinical course of the disease."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently asked Roni Rosenfeld, a professor of computer science who typically uses artificial intelligence to forecast the spread of seasonal influenza, to turn his computing power on the spread of COVID-19. However, Rosenfeld himself was reluctant at first given the lack of data available upon which to base his predictions.

In India, citizen-led small-scale digital efforts are helping to connect Covid-19 patients with the resources, supplies, and medical equipment they need to survive. The citizen groups are largely using online platforms to crowdsource what they need, with some matching buyers and sellers and others "debunking inaccurate leads."

Retired software engineers in Washington have joined together and created a website that aggregates all available COVID vaccine appointments by using "screen scrapers." Although the site doesn't allow the visitor to book an appointment, it has routinely averaged "10,000 visits a day from anxious shot hunters."

The National Education Association has launched a school-focused COVID-19 case tracker in the U.S., all thank to the efforts of a Kansas theater teacher. Alisha Morris started with an excel sheet and took to online searches to start logging the number of positive cases, first around her state, and later was tracking 48 U.S. states. By the time she handed off the data to the NEA, Morris, along with various volunteers "had logged over nearly 4,300 cases at more than 1,000 schools."

Logically is a fact-checking app that combines AI technology and human research to assess and label the truthfulness of news articles. The app has about 20,000 users after a soft launch in the UK, with a full launch planned for late 2020. The AI technology, a feature that makes the app unique, tries to match news claims to other sources and then human researchers take over to make a final judgment. The app has been busy fact-checking the extensive Covid-19 related misinformation. Some aspects, like technology glitches and slow fact-checking responses from researchers, still need to be worked out.

Communities in Nigeria have been using WhatsApp to manage isolation and help provide support to their fellow residents during the coronavirus pandemic. In many instances organizations and individuals are helping to raise and provide funds to those who are experiencing financial hardship.