What can engineers do to alleviate the Covid-19 misery?

Shikva-e-zulmat-e-shab se to kahin behtar tha

apne  hisse  ki  koi  shama  jalate  jaate

(It would be far better than cribbing about darkness of night to light a lamp of your own)

Is ki wo jaane  use pas-e-wafa  tha  ki na tha

tum Faraz apni taraf se to nibhate jaate

(Why think if they had regard for love, You, Faraz, abide by your sense of fidelity)

All of us sit at home, engaged in this or that, or not busy with nothing. But I am sure all of us do wonder if there was something we could do to help the situation, our own little lamp, barring of course the faculty and students of the Whatsapp Open University for the Mentally-Negligible. These Whatsapp guys have no time, overloaded that they are in spreading falsehood, fake news, inanities, urban legends, motivational and inspirational insipidity (pass it on? SMC), moronish information (Must read!!!), dingbat jokes (Rolling on the floor, Forsooth), greetings (ever hear of Good Tuesday morning), blockhead entertainment, political and religious bigotry and similar stupidities. 

As someone said recently, there is a lot you can do with Artificial Intelligence but what about Natural Stupidity?

So what can we do? Well, social service in some form, which I would think, many are indeed doing already, big thanks to them. What about something more than that? Let me talk about engineers (and scientists) and how they can work towards something meaningful. I am sure it needs a nudge from government or a large corporate house, or even some individual brilliance and dedication, to make some breakthroughs. You would definitely get encouraging responses with willing professionals and innovations; they can, in turn, inspire many potential volunteers. The time has come to harness our engineering and scientific expertise to help soften the impact of this deadly epidemic. One caveat. All this is certainly arm chair advice and I do not claim it to be more than that.

Statistical understanding and mathematical modelling:

Doctors don’t understand that much. It is not their job. For example the same information, that of number of Covid-19 cases in India going to 2000 in a month is being put up in different manner, mostly without any reference to statistical significance. Near exponential growth, second lowest rate of growth, erratic growth and so on. You have a simple X-Y graph claiming that the spread in India was slower. True. But we have the same data with scale Y in logarithmic scale and the presenter say that we are not that better off. Quite obviously, these graphs and numbers are not painting the full picture correctly. In any case, let us not forget that countries have their own testing and reporting norms as well as the different mechanisms for tracing and treating cases.

Then there are so called mathematical models predicting things. Have they been done in a scientific manner? A mathematical model simulates a system, or a likely system which in the process of taking shape, employing mathematical concepts and language, which can then be used to study the impact of different variables or components and make predictions. The starting point obviously is to collate existing data with all variables and components and after building the model, cross check its extent of agreement with repeatable experimental or actual field data and then rework on the model to improve the agreement. I am sure many models would have been designed by now. But do we have an India-specific model? Unlikely because enough data itself would not be available in all details so a model made abroad must be in use. Not good enough. If we had a reliable India-centric model which would make reasonable predications, the reigning uncertainty would be somewhat mitigated. A group of brilliant engineers should come forward to develop an Indian model for spread of Covd-19 and believe me, it would help even in coming months, let alone coming years.

Respirators and Ventilators

I understand that we have to be ready with some 200000 thousand Ventilators and a larger number of respirators as early as May whereas we have some 50000 only at present. The capacity of current manufacturers in India is at the level of 3000 to 5000 per month. These are small companies which not only lack the financial muscle to boost their production to meet the requirement but also lack any infrastructure or even the will to do a quick R&D on the subject. Why? Their products must meet the Quality benchmark of USA’s FDA or EU’s CE. That requirement is fine but when did someone last look at the relevance? Are we so afraid of our vendors and our own capacity to regulate vendors that we do not even have our own standards suited to our conditions; the age-old chicken and egg story of a lack of trustful partnership between the users and the makers. Maybe it is possible to design a no-frills Ventilator at half the price. I am no expert on these devices but my experience otherwise tells me that black box type control circuitry and equipment for patient monitoring must be the reason of its high price; Indian companies can simplify the system. A good news I have heard is that while M/s Mahindra was working on a prototype, a firm in NOIDA has made their own concept and prototypes which are under extensive testing. More power to their efforts and let there be more.

Sanitizers

Use of sanitizers or cleaning solutions with specific anti-viral properties has been specified. So far so good. Have we in India done any experiment to study the actual effect of these sanitizers on the Corona virus. This, again, does not look like something too complicated to study. Doctors are busy saving lives but what about our scientists and Biochemical engineers? I am sure they can be engaged to work on this and let this not be such an imponderable. 

Behaviour of Corona virus in Indian environment 

We are all reading reports about the impact of temperature and humidity on the virus and its spread and most of these are, unfortunately, by way of speculation. There are, of course, some scientific studies already out in public domain putting out various possible scenarios but all of them were conducted outside India. We have so many cases of infection in the country already. Has any experimentation been done in India simulating the climatic conditions in India in April, May and June and its influence on this specific virus? I am sticking my neck out but I am sure it would not be some rocket science for some competent scientists and engineers.

I will  not even talk about diagnostic kits and other PPEs as I know practically nothing about them. I hope someone would dilate on this thought to include everything that is needed today to fight this virus. But my wish list is large, as wish lists usually are! Is it stupid to think that some kind of an automatic scan or even a sensor-based quick computerized examination could be done on a large number of people and sift out those with a reasonably high chance of being infected?