Reports of the shortage of COVISHIELD, a coronavirus vaccine (COVID-19) manufactured by Serum Institute of India, are seen outside a COVID-19 vaccination center in Mumbai, India, April 20, 2021. REUTERS / Francis Mascarenhas
After hours of fruitless calling to government helplines in a search for a hospital bed for a critically ill COVID-19 patient, Indian attorney Jeevika Shiv posted an SOS request on Twitter.
“Serious # covid19 patient in #Delhi with oxygen level 62 needs a hospital bed immediately,” said Shiv, part of a COVID-19 voluntary Medical Support Group of 350 members, said on Twitter late last week.
Help arrived quickly. The patient found a bed and soon showed signs of recovery.
“Finally, it was online help that worked because people responded with information,” Shiv said.
India is reporting more than 250,000 new COVID-19 cases every day in the worst phase of the pandemic. Hospitals reject patients and supplies of oxygen and medication are running out.
In response, people are bypassing conventional lines of communication and turning to Twitter to crowdsource help for oxygen bottles, hospital beds, and other requirements.
People in need and those with information or resources share phone numbers of volunteers, vendors who have oxygen bottles or drugs, and details about which medical facility can take patients with hashtags like #COVIDSOS.
Some users have offered to help home cooked meals for COVID patients quarantine at home and meet a host of other needs, such as arranging pet feeding.
“Twitter should do what government helpline numbers should do,” Twitter user Karanbir Singh wrote.
“We’re on our own people.”
Twitter is not as widely used in India as Facebook or WhatsApp, but it proves to be a more valuable tool to get pleas for help in the coronavirus crisis, largely because of its’ re-tweet ‘feature that can quickly amplify a message from users’ networks of contacts.
A Google spreadsheet from a volunteer group that gathers information about hospital beds, oxygen supplies, blood plasma, and ambulance hotlines in various states is quickly shared on Twitter and spans dozens of pages.
Bengaluru-based software developer Umang Galaiya, 25, has created a website where users can select the name of the city and requirement – be it oxygen or the antiviral drug remdesivir – and then lead them to results on Twitter using the advanced search function.
His website has been visited more than 110,000 times.
“Every other tweet on my feed was about COVID,” said Galaiya.
“I’m glad people find this useful.”
But for some, help comes too late.
On Monday, journalist Sweta Dash posted a plea on Twitter for help finding a bed with a ventilator for a pregnant woman in New Delhi. Her message quickly spread via more than 100 retweets and a government official in Delhi soon suggested a hospital.
But a few hours later, Dash posted another message.
“The patient has died”.
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