covid19tracker.in: IIT Hyderabad develops website for all things related to COVID-19

Hyderabad: Researchers of IIT Hyderabad have developed a website called 'covid19tracker.in' that will be the go-to website for information relating to COVID-19 in the country, including predictions of cases in the post-Omicron scenario and COVID resources. In the last 30 days, the website has already served over 18 million requests from a quarter-million visitors.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck India in early 2020, it became imperative to have a single consolidated website for relevant information at national, state-wise, and even district-wise levels. The website 'covid19india.org' was started at this time and was the most popular website for such information in addition to the government website.

In August 2021, the creators of this website announced that they would no longer maintain up-to-date statistics after 31 October. Knowing how crucial this information is to Indians of all hues (researchers, students, and the public), the director of IIT Hyderabad authorized a team of developers at IITH to carry on the work beyond 1 November 2021. The outcome was covid19tracker.in which is built using the public code base of covid19india.org.

Prof. B.S Murty, the director of IIT Hyderabad, said the website will be an important resource for everyone interested in data related to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. "Our site has attracted considerable traffic despite having been created so recently. In fact, we have noted with pleasure that the Worldometers website for India uses just two sources – our site and that of the ministry of health and family welfare."

Speaking about the objective of the website, Prof M. Vidyasagar FRS, a professor at IITH, said, "Currently, we have gone beyond the original website by including predictions for the future course of the pandemic, generated by the SUTRA Consortium of which IIT Hyderabad is a member. Most recently, we have included the projections for the post-Omicron scenario as well. In the future, we plan to enhance the website by including a search feature to highlight trends and raise alerts as and when required. If resources permit, we will monitor not just India but other countries as well. The emergence of the Omicron variant of concern shows that India cannot collect and monitor its data in isolation."

Talking about the technical attribute of the portal, Prof. Bheemarjuna Reddy Tamma, chair, Computer Centre, IITH, said, "We are sourcing data mainly from state bulletins, official social handles, www.cowin.gov.in website, and www.mohfw.gov.in website while updating case numbers, vaccination doses administered, the number of tests conducted, etc. in our covid19tracker.in website. While the front end of our website has the same user interface as that of the original website (covid19india.org), the back-end was developed in-house by a group of enthusiastic students of IIT Hyderabad and maintained by the staff members of Computer Center, IIT Hyderabad."

He added that the website has been hosted on a public cloud platform to make it highly scalable and responsive even when web traffic shoots up. "As expected, the website has been attracting a lot of visitors. It has served over 18 million requests from a quarter-million visitors over the past 30 days," he said.