
Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers - tvvocold
https://helpwithcovid.com/
======
eezurr
Please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors and offering your time
to gather groceries/supplies for them. Or posting a note near the entrance of
your apartment complex with your number. This alone will have a huge impact.
They have a very real chance of dying if they contract covid-19. Take a moment
to imagine how you would feel if you could not safely leave your home.

<rant> A lot of us have the amazing comfort of working from our own homes,
isolated from the rest of the world. In roughly 2-3 weeks, the epicenter
locations of this disease in the US are going to run out of hospital beds. If
you are younger and healthy, please consider asking your boss if you need to
be working full time right now. Watch your state governor's and mayor's press
conferences. They will communicate to you where you can go to help volunteer.

We are going to transition to "war time leadership". A time that will test
everyone's true character. </rant>

~~~
brookside
I joined a community group that is doing just this, and as an hour ago have a
list of older neighbors to check in on, and possibly help with obtaining food
and medications.

I do wonder if at 39 i am in fact young enough to be in the most-likely-to-
survive-if-exposed group.

~~~
OakNinja
As long as you don’t have any other diseases, you’re statistically sort of
“safe”. 0.2% risk of dying for your age group regardless of physical health
according to [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-
se...](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-
demographics/)

Wash your hands, stay safe.

~~~
bronipstid
For comparison, the death rate across all age groups of flu is 0.1%.
Extrapolating out, a failure to contain the virus will still mean tens of
thousands of young healthy people dying in every country. That's why
governments are finally admitting "Herd Immunity/Flatten the Curve" without
total containment is not an option.

~~~
ejstronge
> For comparison, the death rate across all age groups of flu is 0.1%.
> Extrapolating out, a failure to contain the virus will still mean tens of
> thousands of young healthy people dying in every country.

I’m not sure why you’re comparing the all-age mortality of flu to the age-
specific mortality of COVID-19.

The relevant metric would be about 0.02% [1]

1\.
[https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html)

~~~
bronipstid
Why not? It's just giving some context to people who may think .2% is a "low"
mortality rate.

Thanks for the age specific number. That shows my point even more.

~~~
ejstronge
Ah, I wasn't sure what point you were trying to make, but I thought the all-
age figure understates how much more deadly COVID-19 is compared to influenza.

------
yiyus
This is a great initiative, but it looks to me like most of these projects are
directed to help the US. That's totally understandable, but there are many
people all over the world willing to help with this, and it would be great if
we could also collaborate to help everyone.

For example, as an engineer, I was interested in helping with the 1M
ventilators project, but reading the description it looks like the goal is to
create a reserve for the US of more than 740000 ventilators. Sorry, but I want
to help people everywhere, not just in the US. The whole world needs
ventilators.

Maybe I just misunderstood, and the US numbers were just indicative, but it
does not look like a global effort. Does anybody knows of a similar initiative
that is not so focused on the US?

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Sorry, but I want to help people everywhere, not just in the US. The whole
> world needs ventilators.

The US is part of the world. This is like people who think that global oil
prices are irrelevant if the US produces more than it consumes.

They're talking about _building_ ventilators. That causes more of them to
exist in the world. Then when the US needs them, they use those instead of
outbidding other countries for existing stock, causing more to be available
for the rest of the world too.

~~~
rozularen
I think you still didn't get the point? He's just saying he wants to help with
a global project not the ones focused only on US

~~~
creato
Then make a global website? Or post a project on this site that is global in
nature?

------
randunel1
Here at [https://www.coronawiki.org](https://www.coronawiki.org) we are also
looking for help. I am Dr. Riciu Andrei, board certified dermatologist with a
strong interest in infectious diseases

I put together a team of medical professionals, researchers, programmers and
data scientists and we're trying to create the most accurate Coronavirus /
COVID-19 resource (data stats and accurate medical information). With this
project I am trying to help as many people as I can gain access to reliable
information and data and stop the fake news that trigger a lot of panic.

~~~
notahacker
Hi Riciu. This looks like a very promising resource. One constructive comment:
your dashboards could benefit from some text above clarifying things like
[i]some countries test more symptomatic people than others [ii]recoveries are
much lower because recovery takes time and in most places most of the cases
are new etc [iii] many cases are undocumented. And possibly linking to your
articles on the same subject.

This may be clear to you, but perhaps not to some people using the data to
assess the relative safety of their country or age group.

------
_curious_
This site, list, and general orientation of 'tech for good' applied towards
CV19 is very likeable. Especially so at a time where there is going to be
excess brain capacity on the sidelines due to layoffs or those now working
from home who have spare time & motive to do something and feeling helpless.

The economic + remote labor shifts definitely open up more resources for
side/volunteer stuff for those, like me, wanting to help this cause but not
sure how or where to begin.

After reading through and clicking on a few projects of personal interest, my
feedback for those listing who seek to increase their chances of success and
maximize impact would be:

(a) make the 'how to get in touch' more consistent/accessible. An email
contact should be standard. Just give me an email address and i'll give you
mine, we'll go from there.

(b) consider thinking bigger and broader in terms of 'looking for'. It takes
much more than devs/languages to get something real off the ground, scale it,
and actually solve a real world problem. Designers, PMs, marketing, strategy,
people with capital and connections... Not that it's fast or easy to find
these things, but understanding the scope of what you will actually need to
succeed upfront will only expand your funnel and give you options to evolve
and grow by tapping into diverse expertise as the product is built.

~~~
antsar
Also consider including progress to date, your rough plan (if any), an
indication of how much leadership is in place or required.

Like "b" above: as a potential volunteer it's helpful to know whether you have
a plan and just need workers or if it's still early idea phase and you need
executive help.

------
tootie
I applaud the intent, but this looks like a laundry list of random ideas.
There's no leadership or vetting or job descriptions. I'd love to help us
build 1,000,000 ventilators, but I think the answer to that one is for
governments to allocate money to manufacturers (which is starting to happen),
not to crank out some javascript.

~~~
pdelbarba
These are all moonshot projects. If someone can come up with a creative and
simple ventilator that relies entirely on 3d printed and massively available
electronic parts they can save a lot of lives and it appears to be entirely
possible. If they don't produce anything of value, at least they tried.

~~~
Uehreka
> at least they tried.

I recognize the optimism and idealism in this way of thinking and feel bad
about countering it, but as someone who has taken on a number of “if we fail
at least we tried!” ideas over the years, this is a recipe for burnout.

Enthusiasm and passion are valuable and scarce resources: we don’t have an
unlimited amount. Each time we take on a project and really throw ourselves
into it, we’re investing a bit of our limited passion supply. If the project
works out and makes an impact, we get a return on that investment, and feel
the motivation to take on even bigger projects! But if you throw yourself body
and soul into too many projects that totally fail, you’ll eventually run out
of steam to keep going, and you may not even see it coming until it’s too
late.

To continue the investment analogy: I recommend folks invest themselves in
projects with an eye to risk. “A weekend project that will almost certainly go
nowhere, but could go somewhere” is a small investment, sure go ahead. A
months long grind with a startup better come with a plausible strategy for
success that doesn’t hinge on something unlikely.

Invest well, friends.

------
0xfaded
I have an idea to increase viral RNA test throughput (PCR) by 46.5 times using
a binary encoding scheme that I hope someone here might be able to
validate/invalidate. Sorry for the thread jack, but I tried posting this
yesterday but didn't get picked up.

[https://wet-robots.ghost.io/how-to-increase-covid-19-testing...](https://wet-
robots.ghost.io/how-to-increase-covid-19-testing-by/)

~~~
willturman
I do custom applications for a liquid handling robotics company.

Nucleotide extraction and amplification are some of the most common
contemporary applications of modern liquid handling robots. Cherry-picking or
sorting of samples is also a technique that is common and well within the
functionaltiy of these robots.

To avoid cross-contamination, diagnostic samples are typically not mixed and
handled in discrete wells with sample specific disposable pipette tips. In a
scenario where throughput/cost/reagent scarcity are important and false-
positives (without severe symptoms) are low-risk I think your suggestion
absolutely has merit. I am going to run this by our diagnostics specialist for
further review.

~~~
0xfaded
Hi willturman,

I'd love to hear if this goes anywhere. My email is carlchatfield gmail com.

Thank you

------
jph
If you're on GitHub and want to help, you can edit these country-specific
pages to add your area nonprofits, organizations, volunteer opportunities, and
the like:

[https://github.com/nonprofitnetworks/covid](https://github.com/nonprofitnetworks/covid)

We're launching today with blank pages ready to edit for all countries, and we
welcome help. My email is joel@nonprofitnetworks.org if you want to contact me
about this.

~~~
secfirstmd
I'd hate to state the obvious but why Github? It's quite a big barrier to
entry for the average person (especially in places with low literacy) to write
in MD, make a pull request etc. Why not just use a public Google doc or
something?

Don't get me wrong. I get where you are coming from but I have gone down the
Github route on a few similar projects and regretted it.

------
sequoia
Do these projects have PMs etc.? I am curious about them (and work at a
company whose services overlap with some of these initiatives) but it's hard
to tell if there's anything more just a title + a paragraph to these projects.
Nothing wrong with that, just looking for some clarity here.

Limiting this list to projects that are _underway_ and have some clear
leadership might help avoid the "random list of ideas" problem that another
user here pointed out. I mean to say, if you don't have a plan, a leadership
group/person, and something underway, don't post (if you're not able to get
that much together, you don't have a project, you have an idea, and ideas are
not very valuable).

------
nikivi
There's also [https://en.coronahelpers.nl](https://en.coronahelpers.nl) but I
think it's only for Netherlands.

Although I misunderstood. Above site is for finding volunteers to help with
daily tasks.

------
_bxg1
I realize this is probably a work in progress, but as a suggestion, it would
really benefit from better navigation:

\- Sorting (particularly by # of volunteers, to find ones that aren't filled
up)

\- Searching by string

\- Maybe tags that can be searched by? (skillsets wanted, etc.)

\- Projects could list an estimated number of needed volunteers; "Does 86 mean
they don't need any more?"

Overall, excellent idea and it looks great so far. I just think the above
would make it much easier for people to find the right place to contribute.

~~~
dhosek
Yeah, it seems weird that the default presentation is to put the projects with
the most volunteers at the top.

------
radmin
The Helpful Engineering project has several thousand volunteers and a global
scope:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cM87eJdXhP_8e9gJJZ_SnZXd...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cM87eJdXhP_8e9gJJZ_SnZXdo_huWsBmMzcqYWbhEOg/preview)

------
gadders
There is also:
[https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/](https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/)

------
stared
In this thread, there is an ongoing hackathon
[https://www.hackcrisis.com/](https://www.hackcrisis.com/) (until this
weekend).

------
ThePhysicist
To all German speakers: There will be a government-sponsored hackathon from
Friday to Sunday, please think about participating!

[https://wirvsvirushackathon.org/](https://wirvsvirushackathon.org/)

We think about building tools for anonymous health data collection or a tool
to fight misinformation / fake news using passive DNS data and some (simple)
machine learning. Help is greatly appreciated :)

~~~
h3ctic
Thanks for sharing! I spread the info with my colleagues

------
ajoy
The US spends so much money on defense and making sure soldiers are prepared
for war.

Right now, our soldiers in this war are our frontline medical staff. Nurses
and doctors putting their lives on the line to help the ones in need.

But instead we have this :

Hospital Workers Make Masks From Office Supplies Amid U.S. Shortage
([https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/hospital-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/hospital-
makes-face-masks-covid-19-shields-from-office-supplies))

Doctors in New York treating coronavirus patients reusing masks
([https://www.businessinsider.com/doctors-new-york-treating-
co...](https://www.businessinsider.com/doctors-new-york-treating-coronavirus-
patients-reuse-n95-masks-2020-3))

~~~
markkvdb
Mask shortages are showing up all over Europe too. France and The Netherlands
already started shutting down general practitioner offices due to a lack of
protective gear. A month ago the WHO already warned for this shortage
([https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/who-warns-
glob...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/who-warns-global-
shortage-face-masks-protective-suits-coronavirus))

It's kind of heart-breaking to see people wearing the N95 masks on the
streets, while hospitals are having a hard time to find sufficient protective
gear to keep the hospital afloat.

------
idoby
Is the purpose of this site to connect me with a project needing help as fast
as possible, or to collect data?

If the former, why do I need to sign up to join the project? Just link to
whatever wiki/github/slack/trello/whatever it's using or a point of contact.

~~~
resonantjacket5
The point is for the project to contact you. Not for you to contact them.

I understand that signing up is annoying, but really this isn't the time to be
concern trolling about an email/account sign ups. Plus how are you going to
help if you can't be contacted?

------
secfirstmd
Also a very worthwhile Github Project here for the John Hopkins Map. 400+
issues at the moment

[https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/issues](https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/issues)

------
Alex3917
If anyone is interested, I made a subreddit to discuss over-the-counter drugs,
supplements, and other treatments for Covid—19:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/covid19stack](https://www.reddit.com/r/covid19stack)

------
starpilot
You can also donate blood, "American Red Cross faces 'severe blood shortage'
as cancellations increase due to coronavirus":
[https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/american-red-cross-faces-
sev...](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/american-red-cross-faces-severe-blood-
shortage-cancelations/story?id=69642130)

You can still donate while on most medications, which is something I didn't
know.

------
rapjr9
Given some people need to continue working, giving care, maintaining
infrastructure, maybe social distancing in time as well as physical distance
would be a good idea? You might be surprised how few people are around at 4am.
Even if people didn't want to work at night, they could still spread out work
hours during the day. Businesses have probably already thought of this, but
workers in other areas may not have.

------
taborj
Hopefully some of these aren't re-inventing the wheel. For instance, currently
the first one is helping build APIs for getting healthcare data. This is
potentially a solved problem; indeed, interoperability is rather a large
market in the healthcare world (I speak as someone who does this for a
living).

~~~
umbelisco
curious where you would start tackling it? what are the right building blocks
that can be accessed for devs building solutions? from an outside perspective
there is little access to data across the silos. im helping coordinate the
project, not a healthcare expert myself (rather coming from the api / data
side from other verticals), so happy about your thoughts.

~~~
taborj
FHIR APIs are allowing a standards-based approach to accessing healthcare data
from external sources, such as an app. In addition, there are national
networks for sharing data between clinics and hospitals, like CareQuality and
Commonwell. I'm most familiar with CareQuality, as that's the system my
company's EHR software integrates with. It uses SOAP calls to exchange CDA
documents.

------
VectorLock
The thing that worries me the most about the Elderly Grocery projects is that
elderly individuals are EXTREMELY vulnerable to criminals and scam artists.
They are explicitly target. I'm very afraid of people volunteering for these
things as a confidence builder they can use to prey upon them.

------
mistersquid
I posted this to my agency's Slack channel. It didn't unfurl because there's
no OG data.

I added this as byline: "Community projects looking for volunteers. Sign up
and add your project to the list."

OG data would help promote the page with less effort by those who share in
social media and text messages.

------
fortran77
> Help With COVID is a marketplace for people (especially software engineers)
> to find projects to contribute to, and for projects to find help.

Do you know how "software engineers" can "help with COVID?" By getting into
their cars and bringing supplies to elderly people in their neighborhood.

~~~
scrollaway
Quit being hostile to people trying to help. It's the lowest of the low you
can be during a world-wide crisis.

~~~
blackguardx
Anyone is free to spend their free time as they wish and trying to help is
very noble. However, there are some very mundane things people can do that
would seem to have a lot more impact than many of these projects. Volunteering
to delivery groceries is one.

It is like volunteering to help out a soup kitchen. Sure, they could probably
use some help with their website or other technical issues, but mostly they
just need people to serve food.

~~~
scrollaway
So do those, instead of arguing about it in a time-wasting forum.

When I shop for my groceries, I make sure to ask my elderly neighbours if they
need anything. However, that's something a very large amount of the population
can do. So I choose to spend the spare time I have applying my overall-rare
skills where they can have the most impact, such as helping improve efficiency
of testing in labs and remove technical speedbumps from hospital staff.

Anyone who wants to be a fucking moralist over this can quite frankly shut up,
bunker up in their home and go back to wasting their quarantine watching
Netflix and reading HN.

------
CodiePetersen
I don't know who made the website but shouldn't the least volunteered ones be
at the top.

~~~
evv
Looks like the project was started by Sam Altman, Radu Spineanu, Tinnei Pang
(YC folks, it seems).

According to
[https://helpwithcovid.com/projects/1](https://helpwithcovid.com/projects/1)

PSA, the Discord is getting more active:
[https://discordapp.com/invite/mgupDG](https://discordapp.com/invite/mgupDG)

------
tectonic
We've started FeedADoc.com and posted it on helpwithcovid
([https://helpwithcovid.com/projects/53](https://helpwithcovid.com/projects/53)).
10 volunteers from HN folks so far, thank you!

------
jjm
I created overnight [https://covid-info.us](https://covid-info.us)

I’m just trying to help out any way I can.

Some of the info here I will post on the site.

I also have access to other information which may not yet be public and that’s
going up as soon as possible.

------
CodiePetersen
It really does kind of feel gross that these sound like business pitches.

------
ISNIT
Have you seen
[https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/volunteering](https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/volunteering)
?

------
k2xl
I built this project to help track covid trends in countries and states.
[https://covidtrend.com](https://covidtrend.com)

------
miguelmota
My colleague launched a podcast on coronavirus news
[https://coronavirus.fm/](https://coronavirus.fm/)

------
abductee_hg
maybe also this?

[https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/fkeewi/how_to_us...](https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/fkeewi/how_to_use_one_ventilator_to_save_multiple_lives)

------
OatsAndHoney
Are there any software projects on GitHub which need volunteers, that helps
the researchers?

------
DariusMarkus
Hopefully there is a general cure found against this virus, this is necessary
as soon as possible.

------
aaron695
This should have started months ago when it hit China to help them.

So try to be forward thinking. Don't just think in the now.

In Italy some places don't treat people without families for instance (The
excuse is they have no one to care for them after ICU, but we know the real
reason)

Tinder for fake family's for instance?

~~~
vorpalhex
> In Italy some places don't treat people without families for instance

This is false and not aligned to the current guidelines[^1] put out for triage
of cases.

> So try to be forward thinking. Don't just think in the now.

People need groceries _today_. Projects are attempting to fill those gaps we
need, not the theoretical ones we might have tomorrow. Sure, you should keep
an eye on the future, but you need to address the present.

[^1] - PDF WARNING
[http://www.siaarti.it/SiteAssets/News/COVID19%20-%20document...](http://www.siaarti.it/SiteAssets/News/COVID19%20-%20documenti%20SIAARTI/SIAARTI%20-%20Covid19%20-%20Raccomandazioni%20di%20etica%20clinica.pdf)

~~~
aaron695
> This is false and not aligned to the current guidelines[^1] put out for
> triage of cases.

"Every time a bed comes free, two anaesthesiologists consult with a specialist
in resuscitation and an internal medicine physician to decide who will occupy
it.

Age and pre-existing medical conditions are important factors. So is having a
family.

“We have to take into account whether older patients have families who can
take care of them once they leave the ICU, because they will need help,” says
Marco Resta, deputy head of Policlinico San Donato’s Intensive Care Unit."

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-
italy-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-ethics-
speci/special-report-all-is-well-in-italy-triage-and-lies-for-virus-patients-
idUSKBN2133KG)

What is the false bit?

I'm talking about what is happening, not the guidelines.

