IIT-M, IISc to continue COVID data website operations

Till now, covid19india.org offered a comprehensive view on the pandemic across India by providing data on confirmed, active and recovered cases, tests, and fatalities. The portal was also giving vaccination administration status for single-dose and fully vaccinated. The website run by volunteers based on a crowd-sourcing model was providing valuable data to the public and researchers studying the pandemic. But the organisers had recently announced that they would stop their operations after October 31. 

This new initiative of these academic Institutions and Semantic Web India would now continue updating the data from November 1 and make it available at www.incovid19.org, said a statement. 

Explaining the initiative, Prof V Kamakoti, Associate Dean (Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research), IIT Madras, said, “www.covid19india.org was providing a valuable service by making this data publicly available in one place, which is important to understand the pandemic. It benefitted the general public and researchers studying the COVID-19 spread. Factoring these aspects, the three institutions are collaborating with Semantic Web India to provide similar data, with some added improvements.” 

Noting that the data on the pandemic was being put out in public domain by various government entities, he said the new initiative collates all the data and provides a one-stop-shop in a standardised format for the benefit of researchers and the general public. 

The granularity of the data points of www.covid19india.org extended to the districts of most states. The historical data must be preserved in order to support future studies on the pandemic, the statement added.