#covidwarriors

FBI issues crypto ATM warning amid ‘increase in scammers’

  • The FBI in a recently released Public Service Announcement, said that it has witnessed an increase in scammers directing victims to use physical cryptocurrency ATMs and digital QR codes to complete payment transactions.
  • The total crypto scams in 2020 globally amounted to around $10.52 billion, research by Dark Web Link had revealed earlier in April.
  • The same report had also highlighted that scams and frauds are a major problem that made for 67.8 percent of the total cryptocurrency crimes in 2020.

[Via]

Maharashtra Doctor Couple Collects Unused Medicines To Help COVID-19 Patients Who Can’t Afford Them!

As the second wave of the pandemic continues to disrupt the nation, more than half the population struggles to avail of basic medical facilities even.

We have reached a point where it doesn’t matter how rich you are; the shortage of medical equipment and facilities are beating all.

In such a case, think about those who can’t really afford to pay grands for common flu and fever tablets.

To tackle this issue, a doctor couple from Maharashtra started an initiative, ‘Meds For More’ which aims to help people by providing them medicines that were not used by other COVID-19 patients.

“We started this initiative 10 days ago. We collect medicines from housing societies and provide them to those who can not afford them,” says Dr Marcus Ranney, who is heading this initiative along with his wife, Dr Raina.

“The idea came when one of the family members of our staff got infected from COVID-19, and they needed medication. As you know the medicines can be expensive. At that time, there were a few people who had recovered from COVID-19, so we decided to take their medicines and donate them,” Dr Raina said.

After that initiative, the couple decided to take this forward. They took help from some people residing in their neighbourhood and set up a team. “We started this mission with the objective of helping those who can not go out to buy medicines or anyone who can’t afford the COVID-19 medicines,” the couple added.

20 kilograms of unused COVID-19 medicines in just 10 days

Within the 10 days of this initiative, the team managed to collect more than 20 kilograms of unused and leftover medicines. These will further be distributed to primary health care centres in rural districts across the country, which can use them to treat underprivileged COVID-19 patients. 

“We have now 100 buildings that are sending medicines to us. We are a team of eight people and, of course, the volunteers in different buildings. Last week, we collected 20 kilograms of medicines, which have been packaged and given to our NGO partners,” Dr Ranney shared.

‘Meds For More’ is a citizen initiative that collects all kinds of medicines and donates them for the treatment of underprivileged patients. Besides this, they also collect basic equipment like pulse oximeters and thermometers.

People who are interested in supporting ‘Meds For More’ can reach out to the couple via social media or email: medsformoreindia@gmail.com.

Amid the pandemic, NextBigWhat is featuring and honouring every single effort made by individuals, groups and organizations to acknowledge their fight against COVID-19.

If you know someone who’s bringing a change in people’s lives, share their story with us. Let the world know them! #CovidWarriors

Despite Being On Oxygen Himself, Srinagar’s 50YO Asthma Patient Supplies Oxygen Cylinders To COVID-19 Patients!

As the nation battles with rising COVID-19 cases, shortage of medicine, oxygen cylinders and hospital beds, people from every corner of the country, in fact, the world, are coming forward to offer help and do their bit.

One such selfless man from Srinagar came into the limelight who has been delivering oxygen cylinders to hospitals and needy COVID-19 patients despite being on oxygen himself for the past three years.

Manzoor Ahmad is an asthma patient and carries an oxygen cylinder with him 24×7 as it helps him breathe better. The 50YO driver from Srinagar uses a small truck to transport oxygen cylinders to COVID-19 patients and hospitals.

ALSO READ: How 500+ teachers in Mumbai are connecting COVID-19 patients to healthcare facilities!

“I know the importance of oxygen as I have been on oxygen support for the last three years after suffering an asthma attack. I have been driving this vehicle and ensuring my family’s well being. But today, it is even more important to carry these cylinders,” Ahmad says.

Ahmad, who is the only earning member of his family and a father of three, is at higher risk of contracting any deadly infection, let alone COVID-19, as his lungs are weak. And probably this is what drives him to work and serve people every day as he knows the true value of ‘oxygen’.

“I have three children: two sons and a daughter. My elder son is a school dropout while my younger son and daughter are studying, and I want to make them good human beings. This work today is not only giving me a livelihood but also a great amount of satisfaction,” Ahmad further adds. “During this crisis, even if my contribution is able to save even a single life, that would be a great achievement for me.”

ALSO READ: J&K teacher turns into a health worker; record COVID-19 sample collection to curb the cases!

People like Manzoor Ahmad makes us believe that there is much more beyond the struggles we face every day and that one should not give up, no matter what, as this too shall pass soon!

Amid the pandemic, NextBigWhat is featuring and honouring every single effort made by individuals, groups and organizations to acknowledge their fight against COVID-19.

If you know someone who’s bringing a change in people’s lives, share their story with us. Let the world know them! #CovidWarriors

ALSO READ: Ghaziabad family delivers home-cooked meals to COVID-19 affected families every day for free! 

J&K Teacher Turns Into A Health Worker; Record COVID-19 Sample Collection To Curb The Cases!

When a Kashmir based teacher tested positive for COVID-19, reality hit her hard. And that’s when she decided to work as a health counsellor and help the localities.

Babli Rani, originally from Bhaderwah, Doda, has been working in Kashmir for 11 years as a teacher. Things were fine until the virus caught her — and when she tested negative, she signed up as a health counsellor to do her bit.

“Since schools were shut due to COVID-19 and reduced activity, I decided to work as a health functionary days after I had turned negative,” Babli said in an interview. “I was moving from one village to another in Wakoora block carrying out samples of people who contracted the virus. I was tasked to take samples, maintain data of COVID-19 positives and conduct their contact tracing. I have been doing this for months.”

Rani has been posted in Ganderbal for 11 years and has worked in several schools — her last posting was in a government school at Rabitar, after which she started working as a health worker. She was trained in COVID-19 sampling collection, data processing and other basics of a surveillance team member.

ALSO READ: How 500+ teachers in Mumbai are connecting COVID-19 patients to healthcare facilities!

As of this writing, she has collected over 2000 RAT and RT-PCR samples and has become an expert in sample collection.

The idea to take up this role was to ensure that none of the COVID-19 patients transmits the virus to another person, and the district doesn’t witness any rise in cases.

“During one sampling session, I tested a nine-month baby, and on another trip, 40 villagers were found infected with the virus. The officials were pleased with my work and said without these findings; the infections would have spread deeper into the community,” she added.

Discovering herself while working as a health worker

Her typical morning starts with beginning the awareness drive against the disease. Her village trip includes some counselling session where she shares all COVID-19 advisories and measures that can help in limiting the virus spread.

This job, Rani believes, helped her in discovering the social worker inside her. She enjoys her job as working for common people gives her peace of mind. It’s been a few months since she started working, and she has proved herself as an important member of the surveillance team.

“I was home once during the last winter vacation but did not get time to see the kids,” Rani, mother of two,  shared how her work has restricted her from visiting her family.

ALSO READ: Chennai Welfare Group converts autos into ambulances, saves 160+ lives!

However, prevention and precaution are the only ways to protect her loved ones, she says and is happy with helping people around her.

“I am at peace these days,” Rani ends with a high spirit, and she doesn’t intend to stop her work until the pandemic ends!

Amid the pandemic, NextBigWhat is featuring and honouring every single effort made by individuals, groups and organizations to acknowledge their fight against COVID-19.

If you know someone who’s bringing a change in people’s lives, share their story with us. Let the world know them! #CovidWarriors

ALSO READ: Ghaziabad family delivers home-cooked meals to COVID-19 affected families every day for free!

Chennai Welfare Group Converts Autos Into Ambulances, Saves 160+ Lives!

Crisis teaches you a lot, they say!

With the number of COVID-19 cases increasing every day, a social welfare group in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, came up with a very interesting and innovative plan to fight the pandemic.

The community-based organization of North Chennai converted several autos into ambulances with oxygen cylinders installed in it. The idea was to help the COVID-19 patients who are critical and in dire need of oxygen and hospital beds.

As of this writing, the NGO, Chennai Welfare Group, managed to save 160+ patients’ lives with this initiative.

The group involves some engineering graduates and local residents who decided to work together to fight the surge in COVID-19 cases. 

[WATCH: COVID-19 Vaccinations for 18+: All you need to know!]

To ensure that no lives are lost or no patient struggle much, the volunteers also trained themselves in basic first aid to assist others. Critical patients are taken to the nearest COVID-19 care centre in the autos and are provided oxygen in the way.

In the wake of the rapid rise in COVID-19 cases, several auto drivers from different parts of the country have converted their autos into ambulances. Besides, many private car owners decided to utilize their vehicles to help COVID-19 patients for free.

In a country where the most basic medicine is even black marketed today, some people bring a ray of hope and make us believe that this too shall pass!

Amid the pandemic, NextBigWhat is featuring and honouring every single effort made by individuals, groups and organizations to acknowledge their fight against COVID-19.

If you know someone who’s bringing a change in people’s lives, share their story with us. Let the world know them! #CovidWarriors

This Ghaziabad Family Delivers Home-cooked Meals To COVID-19 Affected Families Every Day For Free!

“I have been approached by several individuals and NGOs for help lately, but I sincerely denied them. I am trying my best to help people within my capability,” says Narendra Singh, a Ghaziabad based resident who has been helping COVID-19 affected families by offering them home-cooked meals for free.

It all started when Singh realized how some of his friends suffered when their sisters/ mothers/ wives tested positive. “They weren’t used to manage the home, unlike the ladies. And that striked me. What if we could help them with the food part. At least they won’t need to worry about cooking,” he shares!

However, it wasn’t easy initially. While some couldn’t ask him for him because he was a stranger, others weren’t sure how costly the food would be. And that’s when Singh started circulating WhatsApp messages on his society and friends’ groups; confirming that he would be serving home-cooked meals to every COVID-19 affected family for free!

It’s been 20 days since Narendra Singh and his wife, Dr Manpreet Kaur, started this initiative. Currently, they deliver food to almost four to five families, each consisting of 5-6 members every day. The meal consists of protein-rich dishes paneer, beans, nutella, peas and grams.

“Jo khate hain, wahi khilate hain,” says Dr Kaur, who is a dentist by profession and has been making 50+ chapattis and more than 500gm rice every day. It’s not easy to manage home, a 4 YO kid, along with taking care of patients’ meals, but this is the need of the hour, she says. “We’ve been seeing people struggling for basics. While we also help people in getting verified information about plasma, oxygen cylinders, hospital beds, ventilators, etc., helping them with their meals is something we thought of doing by ourselves,” Dr Kaur continued.

“We’ve always been spiritual and believed in working for humanity. Generally, we used to donate to Gurudwaras in the form of ‘Dasvandh’, but this time we thought of using this money and resources for COVID-19 affected families. Although we are not doing it on a large scale, I am happy with the feedback and the blessings we receive,” says Singh, who lives in Indirapuram.

Narendra and Manpreet belong to a nuclear family. Their daughter is still very young, and hence they never really thought of expanding this initiative. Neither they considered taking any form of donation. But every time someone offers them help, they encourage them to donate only in the form of raw materials or staples and not money. “What we are doing is for humanity and for the almighty; can we really justify it with money,” he smiles. 

Free Home-Cooked Meals

Providing quality with quantity

Currently, Singh and his wife only want to maintain the quality of food and the amount they are serving. They generally prepare and pack the food in containers and send it via delivery services like Swiggy Genie.

Every time they send food to any family, they form a relationship with them, which cannot be defined. “I feel they become my family and their health and recovery start mattering to me as much as it matters to their loved ones,” Narendra says.

[Watch: Team Hope offering free food amid #COVID19​ in Varanasi]

Over time, he is also preparing a database of all the patients he has been serving food to. The idea is to keep a record of people who may wish to donate plasma after they recover. Besides this, Singh also works with some local Gurudwaras and communities to help people. 

Singh believes that this nature of helping others and going beyond one’s comfort zone is in the culture of Sikhism. “Langar is a basic and very old & vital part of our culture. While ours is a home-kitchen based langar, a lot many people are doing it on a societal level. This is a time which demands us to work for others and not for ourselves,” he says.

Singh doesn’t know for how long or how many people he would be able to help, but he doesn’t intend to stop until then. “Nanak Naam Chardi Kala, teraa bhane sarbat da bhala,” he ends with this.

If anyone wants to get in touch with Narendra Singh, s/he can contact him via +91 99903 14742. Currently, they serve food to people residing only within the 10km radius of their home. This ensures that the food remains fresh and hot by the time they receive it.

Amid the pandemic, NextBigWhat is featuring and honouring every single effort made by individuals, groups and organizations to acknowledge their fight against COVID-19.

If you know someone who’s bringing a change in people’s lives, share their story with us. Let the world know them! #CovidWarriors

This Mumbai Based Company Launched A Personalized WhatsApp Chatbot To Fight COVID-19!

India witnessed four lakh COVID-19 cases for consecutive four days. While a lot of private and community-based organizations and volunteers are trying to help people in finding oxygen cylinders, plasma, hospital beds and ventilators, there are still a lot of queries and requirements floating every day on Twitter.

To help people with their queries and fight COVID-19 in their own way, a Mumbai based company came up with their own personalized WhatsApp chatbot that helps people in finding real-time data and information.

Machadalo is a brand owned by Vijaikirti Technologies Pvt Ltd. It’s an IT company HQ in Mumbai specializing in building products and solutions for hyperlocal communities. They have built a campaign management platform that caters to advertising and lead generation in micro-communities. They are also into indirect supply chain management solutions for residential societies and corporates.

Recently, they have built a WhatsApp-based chatbot, Machadalo Education Assistant (MEA), to map the interests of students and then provide them with curated online content.

“As we were experimenting with technology to strengthen the capabilities of our WhatsApp chatbot, we realized that out there is a pandemic which is growing at an alarming rate. Around 24th April 2021, we had an internal team meeting, and we decided that we all have to do something for the people suffering because of COVID-19. Based on our Pan India network with residential societies and our chatbot capabilities, we decided to build a COVID-19 helpdesk cum a WhatsApp based virtual chatbot,” says Anupam Sorabh, the founder.

The motive was purely to provide solutions and not just information to affected people under 30 minutes.

How does it work?

The COVID-19 helpdesk is very simple to use. One can just save the number +91 72088 80208 on WhatsApp and send ‘Hi’ to start the chat session. The bot provides the user with a menu from which a particular category could be chosen. One can select the city to find the latest updated information for a particular query.

For example: If a user wants to know about the latest availability of beds, s/he can type ‘B’, select the state, say Madhya Pradesh, by typing ‘D’ and can get the web URL, which will show the latest availability of hospital beds.

If a user finds it difficult to use, s/he can connect with a volunteer by typing ‘V’ and then by selecting the state and the city he wants to know the information about. There is a special feature that works for all Indian cities, i.e., by typing ‘T’, one can get all the relevant Twitter feeds in real-time for the latest available stock. 

“We want to help affected people with solutions which might save lives and reduce the mental trauma of the near and dear ones,” Anupam continues. “We are getting so much positive feedback every day from both directly affected people and those who want to keep verified information at hand. People are also approaching us to work as a volunteer.”

The COVID-19 helpdesk is developed by an alumnus of NITIE/ NITs and backend technology of Machadalo Platform. With more than 100 active volunteers across India, the team has information of 13500+ verified suppliers.

On asking about the further plans, Anupam says, “we want to tackle the problem of optimizing the entire supply chain, i.e., to provide real-time solutions as and when the real need arises. Currently, what we have achieved is very little, and COVID-19 has already started affecting villages and semi-urban areas drastically. We are now adding more volunteers to our team to make the work smooth. We are also starting to book residential societies for vaccination drives.”

It will take a lot of time and effort for the Machadalo team to reach every village, but they believe this is the least what they can do.

Who thought a small team meeting would turn into a big initiative and will start impacting so many people.

“Save this number, share save lives: +91 72088 80208. Follow the COVID-19 protocol strictly and help in whatever way you can,” Anupam ends with a small but important message.

Amid the pandemic, NextBigWhat is featuring and honouring every single effort made by individuals, groups and organizations to acknowledge their fight against COVID-19.

If you know someone who’s bringing a change in people’s lives, share their story with us. Let the world know them! #CovidWarriors

#COVID19: Why The Primary Outcome Of Any Trial Should Be Reported Before The Commencement?

Similarly, in clinical trials one starts with a target – aka primary endpoint. Generally this is the outcome of the trial you want to measure. These outcomes differ based on the kind of trial being planned. E.g. if we were planning a heart failure trial, some outcomes we might..
measure would be : improvement in LV function, improvement in symptom status, hospitalization, to just name a few. In Covid trials, these end points are determined based on the population we are studying, so for mild cases it might be time to recovery, or progression of disease.
For moderate to severe cases on the other hand, we tend to look at more serious endpoints like need for oxygen or mechanical ventilation or death. The outcome has to be relevant to the patient and it should easily measurable with limited scope for manipulation or bias.
“Composite end point of symptom relief AND free from oxygen on Day 3” might just be the only significant thing they could find when they analysed their 100 measurements, and given this language it sure sounds like it. We won’t know anyhow until they give us a preprint or publish.
Until then, take this press release with a HUGE truckload of salt. End of tweetorial
@drabbyphilips @PriyankaPulla @d_s_thakur @netshrink @swapneilparikh @Charakan @just1doctorwala @pash22 @Neurophysik @Sulci_Gyri @omlakhani

» NextBigWhat’s #Threadmill brings you curated wisdom from Twitter threads on product, life and growth.

Read more posts on #CovidWarriors and Social Enterprise here!

Brother-sister duo spends 10 days in a car-turned-ward, beats all odds to save their COVID positive mom

The pandemic has changed our lives dramatically. Children had to learn remotely, businesses have shut down, and people have lost their jobs. 

Millions of children are grieving the loss of family members, including grandparents. Millions are running from pillars to poles to save every last breath of their loved ones….

This is the story of two siblings who defeated all the odds to save their mother who tested positive for coronavirus. 

Payal Singh, who is 25-years-old and Akash, who is 23-years-old drove to Lucknow from Lakhimpur Kheri for their mother’s dialysis. Every time after their hospital visit, they would return home. Only this time, things took a turn. 

Meanwhile, the mother, Parul Singh developed fever and was advised to conduct an RT-PCR COVID test. As their mother was a suspected case of COVID-19, they had no other option but to stay in the car in the hospital’s parking lot. 

Parul Singh tested positive for coronavirus and her oxygen level started dropping. Meanwhile, the hospital authorities refused to conduct dialysis. 

The siblings did not manage to find a hospital that had an oxygen-supported bed. Fortunately, the brother-sister duo arranged oxygen cans that lasted for a while. 

Until her condition improved, the mother, the brother, and the sister stayed back in the car. Owing to their perseverance and hope and providing constant care, Parul Singh’s condition improved. 

Due to lack of hospitalization, the treatment was carried out inside the car where the three stayed. To maintain her oxygen level, proning was also done on the backseat of their car. 

After intense and exhausting hours, their father bought an oxygen cylinder. “We even sent our dad home as senior citizens are easily susceptible to the virus,” she said. 

The tale continued. They could not arrange for a bed again on the next day. The family had to spend another day in the car. 

The mother was then finally admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences (RMLIMS). Akash Payal, meanwhile, has mild symptoms. He remained isolated in the car, while Payal managed the crisis.  The siblings only had masks and gloves to protect themselves and were forced to use public restrooms while they staying in the car. 

This proves we got any extent to save our loved ones during a crisis. Our ability to come together and fight as one is truly special. 

Salute to the dedication showed by the siblings to save their mother. It is the hope that got them out of this deadly crisis. They are our unsung heroes! #covidwarriors.