Driving Comfort
Sonal Goel, CEO, Gurugram Metropolitan City Bus Limited, and Additional CEO, Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority
She uses the city buses at her disposal to ferry essential commodities and grocery items from wholesalers to RWAs and retail points set up by the administration. Subsequently, the buses become mobile stores for home delivery of groceries, fruits and vegetables. The buses transport official medical teams to containment zones and take patients from home to hospital and back after discharge and recovery. Another important GMCBL initiative, which started on April 21, is the Mobile Sample Collection Bus. The Drive-Thru collection of COVID-19 samples for testing in Gurugram is her idea. One mobile bus, equipped with technicians and phlebotomists, even conducts COVID-19 tests and operates daily at fixed hours. The cost is borne by GMCBL; it is even paying the concessionaires.
The Vaccinator
Shaswath Sekar, Bioscientist
Working out of a lab in Wisconsin, US, the Chennai-born 25-year-old bioscientist is pursuing his fourth year of a doctorate programme in Veterinary Pathobiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Under the guidance of professor Dr Adel Talaat, he is now working on a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. “We had developed vaccines for Chicken Coronavirus using a patented technology, which we aim to translate for SARS-CoV-2. The community needs 70 per cent immunity to handle any outbreak in the future,” he says.
Kitchen Confidence
Raksha Ramaiah Director, MSR Group and Advisor, Gokula Education Society, Bengaluru
He opened the kitchen of Rasta Café, which he owns on Church Street, Bengaluru, to an NGO to cook food for over 3,500 people twice a day. He provides the groceries to vegetables to staff to utensils, too. “Many migrants are construction site workers and have been abandoned by their contractors. They have no money for food and their children are the worst affected. Dealing with them has taught me the importance of patience,” he says.
Survival Moms
Pragya Kapoor, Eksaath Foundation, Mumbai
Working with volunteers from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Pragya’s NGO has distributed survival kits (food and hygiene necessities) to 3,000 families in Govandi alone. “This virus has turned out to be the greatest equaliser. It is democratic in its assault. We have seen epidemics before but the highly contagious nature of this virus has linked the poor and the rich. For the rich to survive, it is important that the poor don’t get sick,” reasons Pragya, who is balancing her work at the NGO along with handling her two small sons.
Cottoning On
Anita Dongre, Fashion Designer
House of Anita Dongre announced the production of cloth masks to fight COVID-19. These have the dual purpose of helping villagers: 24 women volunteers are creating up to 7,000 masks each week in two of five rural village centres in Maharashtra. The reusable cotton masks are made with fabric originally purchased for manufacturing clothes. “As long as people need masks they will be produced and distributed,” says Dongre. Previously, the company had set up a `1.5-crore fund to cover small vendors and self-employed artisans facing financial issues.
Getting Emotional
Siddhant Khurana, Programme Lead—COVID Response & Co-founder, Mind Piper, Delhi
Akshita Dutta, Core Team—COVID Response; Child & Adolescent, Psychologist and Co-founder, I Am, Delhi
The initiative bridged by three impact-first mental health organisations, Mind Piper, I Am, and Sochara, and supported by ACT Grants, COVID Response provides mental and emotional health support to the most vulnerable sections of the society, which are experiencing immense fear, worry, and hopelessness due to the pandemic. It received almost 30,000 calls in less than two weeks on the counselling helpline launched with the support of DCPCR, Delhi Government. “We are working tirelessly to build a modern-day grassroots movement for positive mental health and invite the mental health community, and state and central governments to join hands to build a mentally and emotionally resilient post-COVID India,” Siddhant says.
She Tunes
Sona Mohapatra, Singer
She ran an online contest, where over one lakh fans had to guess the name of the music video from which she had posted pictures. “Almost a million people tuned into live FB streaming of me singing 20 songs. We plan to link this performance to a donation drive for the COVID-19 affected,” she says.
Srijana Gummalla Commissioner, Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation
Motherhood did not stop Srijana Gummalla from getting back to work at a time when her office needed her most. Her picture of nursing her three-week-old baby boy while juggling work and fielding calls at her office desk recently went viral. Srijana says that her conscience did not allow her to stay at home at this hour of need.
Blood Workers
Vikas Kumar Singh, Phlebotomist, CORE Diagnostics, Bihar
He has a risky job: entering homes of patients dressed in PPE to take blood samples. Singh calls the patient in advance that he’s coming and the gate must be kept open. He has to be discreet to avoid creating public panic and disturbance—difficult while clad in a PPE, which takes 30 minutes to put on.
Soniya Goyal, Data Entry Operator, CORE Diagnostics, Haryana
The lives of people often lie in her hands. “As per the standard guidelines, we have to maintain a 24-hour turnaround time to notify the government, ICMR, and then later, the report is released to the hospital,” says Soniya. The right information in the right hands at the right time can save lives. She does 24-hour shifts to gather insightful data and share it with appropriate authorities.
Vipin Kumar, Lab Technician, CORE Diagnostics, Uttar Pradesh
Moved by the selflessness of doctors, nurses and support staff who are at the frontline battling COVID-19, he volunteered for the dangerous job of blood collection. He feels sad that people view him with suspicion, knowing his job could expose him to the deadly virus. “I smile back and move on as I know the struggles of a real COVID patient,” he says.
Shining Example
Kalyan Jewellers
The company is associated with Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘We Are One’ initiative to help 1,00,000 families of daily-wage workers in the gems and jewellery sector, and the film industry. The short PSA, which emphasises the importance of staying home and maintaining social distancing, has gone viral. The company has also created the Goldsmith Relief Fund to provide financial relief to artisans.
Wandering Eye
Munish Moudgil, Nodal officer, in charge of the COVID-19 Karnataka state war room
This IAS officer used AI to develop a series of apps to monitor people in home quarantine and do easy contact-tracing. Such information can be accessed from the war room itself. The ‘corona watch’ app provides citizens with real-time information about the virus spread using locations of patients and their movement history in 14 days. Home-quarantined people have to upload their selfies on the app.
Khaki Camraderie Praveen SoodDG and IGP, Karnataka
With his team of 80,000 cops manning COVID-19 containment efforts, the IPS boss is spearheading an effort, which is strictly “not a police role, it’s a medical emergency”. Policemen, who spend sometimes 90 days at a stretch stamping foreign arrivals, conducting screening at airports and state borders, tracing vulnerable travellers and ensuring that they maintain quarantine, guarding isolation wards to institutional quarantines, checking vehicles to make certain that they are only used for essential services, are an unappreciated lot. Sood has taken all precautions to protect his men from infection. The Karnataka Police is purchasing masks made by prisoners in jails, who are responding to the crisis with commitment.
Pocket Tunes
Ben and Tina Thomas Techies, Delhi
The Kochi-bred, Delhi-based techie couple has found a way to benefit both artists and music lovers. Adobe employee Ben’s virtuoso.tv platform allows artists to stream live sessions, shows and workshops which are monetised through viewers’ contributions. Click on the invitation link and log in after paying an entry fee.
PLASMA SCREENERS
Dr Debasish Gupta, Professor and Head, Transfusion Medicine, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum
He leads the research on plasma therapy in Kerala. The state has already got the ICMR nod for clinical trials. Once the process gets underway, Dr Gupta will be responsible for the therapy procedures. According to him, plasma treatment can cure COVID-19 patients within three to seven days. Using plasma from one donor, two to five patients can be cured.
Dr Vishal Rao Director, Head Neck Surgical Oncology and Robotic Surgery and Associate Dean, Centre of Academic Research, HealthCare Global (HCG) Cancer Centre, Bengaluru
His team has made a treatment-combo to boost the immune system with additives known to be effective against the virus. The centre has ICMR approval to conduct convalescent plasma therapy on COVID-19 patients in Karnataka. Researchers have activated T-cells from healthy donors using an enriched cocktail of cytokines rich in Interferons (IFN). The state hopes to create the first set of injections soon for patient use.
Making Room
Rafiq Somani, Area Vice President—India and South Asia Pacific, ANSYS, Inc
His company backed IIT-Ropar’s effort to design low-cost, modular Negative Pressure Rooms (NPRs) using CFD-based modelling and design recommendations. NPRs prevent contaminated air from escaping and have filtered exhausts to avoid spread of the virus, thus protecting healthcare staff. Since these come as modular kits, setting them up is fast and hassle-free.
Appy News
Vishal Gondal Founder and CEO, GOQii
His company has launched a contact-tracing system, which can update through an app. The physical data of all persons you come into contact with, from delivery boys to friends, is Bluetooth to the app automatically. Gondal also offers apps for live exercise classes, doctor consultation and coaches, and a health quiz. Every time a person participates in the quiz, partner Bajaj will donate money to one migrant worker. Drawing from the experience of Chinese colleagues, GOQii staff have been working from home since as early as March 6.
Made to Order
Vijay Dewan, Managing Director, Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels Ltd
The hotel chain owned by Priya Paul launched #THEParkHeartofHope and is doing ‘Neighbourhood Services’, especially for senior citizens, across Bengaluru, Chennai, Goa, Kolkata, Mumbai, Jaipur and Hyderabad. Anyone living within a 5-km radius of a hotel can directly call the concierge for help in an emergency 24x7, free of charge. Dewan says the hotel is helping out senior citizens especially with groceries, medicines and food. “We are also providing free food every day to the underprivileged and community warriors,” he says.
Mind on the Menu
Michael Issenberg, Chairman and CEO, Accor Asia Pacific
The hotel group has prioritised the mental and physical well-being of its staff through a range of programmes and apps. Issenberg knows they are stressed about job losses and reduced working hours. Employees have been given confidential access to counsellors. “This period of isolation and great change is having a huge impact on mental health, apart from the medical aspects of the pandemic,” he says. Accor was the first hotel operator to announce an employee fund to protect staff who might face medical bills and don’t have access to insurance.