Inspiration

A simple way to make testing cheap is to test by clusters.

If you have 8 people and you put all their swabs in the same kit, and it tested negative, then all of them are negative - with only 1 kit used and more than half the time spared.

And even if one of them is infected, you would need only 4 kits to identify the infected individual -- instead of all 8.

We can take advantage of the fact that the infection has not yet swept the entire population, and so testing by clusters is always going to save on kits and on time. So testing can be made more regular.

The trick needed now is how to keep track of these covid19-free individuals. But this is not enough. And an even better trick is how to make sure everyone near some local place are all covid19-free.

What it does

ClusterBadge is a way to track whether a cluster of people has tested negative for the covid19 infection. A cluster of people can be an entire household or the entire workforce of a coffeeshop. Clusters with C-badges are "free to meet". Only C-badge holders can be entertained in a C-badged coffeeshop, for example. It is a guarantee that everyone in the same family or in the same shop has been tested recently.

For a household with a C-badge, the number of visits to shops can be logged, of course with permission. Household C-badgers can be notified to limit their number of shop visits within a day, whether a shop is too popular at the moment or whether they would like to renew their C-badge.

For a shop with a C-badge, the number of customers at the moment can be logged, of course with permission. Shop C-badgers can be notified to limit the number of customers being served at the moment or whether a particular customers C-badge has expired.

In this way, slowly and cautiously, the community is able to get back to business-as-much-as-possible mode, until a vaccine against covid19 is available.

It is a way to regain the livelihood in the community - and its sanity - while keeping the risk of an outbreak low.

What have we done during the weekend

We are already convinced that the idea of cluster testing, issuing badges and monitoring is a solid step in sustaining life and limb during and right after this lockdown period. Our problem is that the only developer and coder in our team could not join us during this weekend, and so we looked for a last minute solution - the no-code app platform AppSheet.

Non-disclaimer: We are in no way related to AppSheet. It came out in a Google search and was easy to setup.

Since Friday, most of our time was spent on learning the AppSheet environment and the no-code way to deploy an app. I think we did a pretty decent job - enough to use in explaining our cluster testing, badging and monitoring idea.

The solution’s impact to the crisis

Nobody really knows the best way for a society to respond to this pandemic. Denmark did a lockdown while Sweden is business as usual. There must be a sweet spot in between these two strategies. Our solution is to allow the local communities to find that sweet spot once the lockdown has been lifted but while the risk of an outbreak is still high.

Communities are in the best position to monitor themselves. Families can keep watch on one another, as they already do. And shops can keep watch over their employees and loyal customers, as they usually do. With ClusterBadge, we keep it easy for everyone to monitor the risk of drinking a cup of coffee - al fresco.

The necessities in order to continue the project

We need to get in contact with a company willing to do this cluster testing, and we need to bring it to the communities.

And of course, we need an app developer.

The value of your solution(s) after the crisis

ClusterBadge is most valuable during that time when the lockdown has just been lifted, but there is still a risk of secondary or tertiary waves of covid infection - or any kind of pandemic in the future.