COVID-19 self-screening tool launched

Robert Myers.

Four local organizations have come together to introduce an online self-screening tool to help track COVID-19 in The Bahamas. 

The tool, called Bahamas Together, is a collaborative effort between Think Simple, a technology firm; the Organization for Responsible Governance (ORG), a non-profit civic foundation; and the non-profit organizations HeadKnowles Foundation and Bahamas Strong.

ORG Chairperson Robert Myers said yesterday the tool could potentially help the public be more aware of “hotspot” COVID-19 areas, and also help health officials to better identify which demographics they should focus on testing. 

“This tracking and understanding where the disease is present and increasing or decreasing is critical, in our mind, and it’s critical to people, the health care professionals and the government because it allows everyone to better prepare and better manage the ensuing crisis,” said Myers during a virtual press conference. 

He added, “It’s that collective information that everybody puts into the web-based screening tool along with our back-end analysis and mapping of that data, that allows our health care professionals to identify areas of the country that they may need to do more testing in and provide additional support to the people in those areas and thus help the people in those areas. 

“We believe it will allow the government to utilize its valuable resources more efficiently, because rather than testing across the entire country, you can start to understand where these hotspots are.

“So, and additionally and of equal importance, we believe the mapping will allow the public to actually be more informed and better prepared just the same way as you might when you get hurricane warnings, so that you can manage your own health risks and manage your own preventative measures…”

According to Myers, Bahamas Together was created “at no cost to the government”.

Since its soft launch last week, it has already recorded over 3,000 self-screenings. 

Bahamas Together displays the total number of screenings done and also shows the number of people currently engaged in self-screening. 

Bahamian citizens and residents access the tool via a website and answer a series of questions related to COVID-19 and their exposure to it, if any.

According to Greg Michelier, principal and partner of Think Simple, the information will be provided to health officials and to the public.

However, he sought to assure the public that all data collected is secured and kept private, and that people can also screen anonymously should they wish. 

“All we ask for is your age group, your sex and your vicinity, so your constituency or area you live,” said Michelier during the press conference. 

“You can opt in to share your name and your location through the web browser, but we’re only getting a snapshot of your current location if you do that. We’re not tracking you.”

He also said that when information is provided to health officials and to the public, it will reflect the overall data rather than individual screening results.

“We are gathering data to identify high-risk communities, which have a large concentration of elderly people, pre-existing conditions, basically people who are at high risk and require additional protection as well [and] identifying people with symptoms, identifying people with pre-existing conditions, people who may have come in contact in the last 14 days and that’s kind of the idea,” Michelier said.

“The front end…is a series of questions and from there we can map and graph the data and provide the health officials by area, by island and break down the data to show them where are people feeling sick and where are they not.”

Myers added that people are also able to log back in and update their information as needed. 

“We obviously want to know when unwell people get healthy, and when healthy people get unwell, because that changes the dynamic and this is a fluid and dynamic process,” he said. 

However, while the website https://ift.tt/2VAf8Iz is officially live, Myers said the information will not be made public until there is enough “meaningful data”.

“[I] would think…if we get [4,000] or 5,000 we’ll start getting some meaningful data,” he said.

“Obviously when you get to [50,000], 60,000, you’re just going to see more clusters and it just gets better and better.”

He added, “Within a week we’d probably have [10,000] or 15,000 people if this is received well.” 

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source https://thenassauguardian.com/2020/04/24/covid-19-self-screening-tool-launched/