

How Blockchain Helps to Fight COVID-19

How Blockchain Helps to Fight COVID-19: the COVID-19 pandemic has been shaking the world. Since the beginning of the year, our lives, our jobs, our friendships and our families were not the same.

Fortunately, in hard times like this, signs of solidarity are emerging everywhere. In the last months, we have seen great acts coming from different individuals, institutions and industries as all parts of society struggle to return to normal life.

The blockchain market couldn’t stand aside. This modern technology has many applications, including in the medicine and the public health field. It has already enabled innovative ways to handle data collected from Covid-19, and there is much more to come.

Do you want to know more? In the following article, the Cripto InterCambio blog will explain how blockchain helps to fight Covid-19.

How Blockchain Helps to Fight COVID-19 – Technology against the virus

Blockchain is here to stay, and not just in the cryptocurrency market. More than ten years after the start of the Bitcoin era, blockchain now has applications in all sectors of the economy, such as video games, decentralized finance, public security, freelance and so on.

And that’s only the beginning. The blockchain technology is capable of storing big amounts of data in a decentralized network that cannot be easily changed or erased. In comparison with a centralized network, blockchain is more transparent and reliable. In the article What is Blockchain, we give an in-depth explanation of its main principles.

That’s very useful to handle the data from Covid-19. It’s possible to store information like the number of infected people, localization, patient’s profile, number of beds available, etc., in a unique blockchain network. Thereby, public authorities can have a more accurate overview of the evolution of the virus.

In addition, with blockchain it is easier to keep people’s anonymity. Positive coronavirus tests can be directly sent to the network, without the need to reveal the identity of the patient.

Moreover, blockchain initiatives can be useful in providing services in the context of social distancing – ensuring the best distribution of resources, helping with philanthropy, and so on.

How Blockchain Helps to Fight COVID-19 – Main Initiatives

Let’s learn a little more about the main blockchain initiatives against the coronavirus.

Centogene and Ubirch blockchain

Centogene is a healthcare data firm, and Ubirch is an Internet of Things (IoT) blockchain company. In face of the Covid-19 pandemic, they joined forces to develop a new device for fighting the virus.

Basically, it’s a coronavirus test integrated into a blockchain network. When someone tests positive for the virus, data is automatically sent to the database. That helps authorities to control the disease progression in real time.

According to Cointelegraph, one of the main advantages of this test is anonymity. Data is encrypted into the blockchain, so it’s not possible to track someone through it.

Immunity Passport

Immunity Passport was created by Privacy Tools, a Brazilian blockchain start-up. It intends to store data from people who are already immune to the virus, so they can get back to work safely after the quarantine period.

As the name of the company suggests, anonymity is one of the key features of this software. The collected data is recorded in a blockchain, so the identity of the user is preserved. Nevertheless, it is possible to have the guarantee that the person is really immunized, as blockchain is immutable.

To get an Immunity Passport, you just have to put your coronavirus test in the blockchain network. With that, it would be possible to check your immunity anywhere in the world, without exposing your personal data.

Hack Covid19

Hack Covid19 was born in Uruguay, and then gained ground in other Latin Americans countries such as Argentina and Costa Rica. This initiative aims to develop disruptive technologies (blockchain included) to fight the disease. Hack Covid19 was created in partnership between local universities and big companies.

Their main goals are in three different areas: logistics, data management and human resources. Everybody can take part: just suggest a problem in one of the three areas. After that, people are going to be divided in teams which will try to solve the problems suggested by the participants.

The solutions are going to be shared with universities and the online community.

Building Blocks – World Food Programme (WFP)

The World Food Programme (WFP) is one of the most important food insurance programs on the planet. As part of the United Nations system, it helps dozens of countries, poor communities, and refugees.

WFP is very active in Kutupalong. Located in Bangladesh, Kutupalong is the biggest refugee camp in the world. There are around 855,000 Rohingya people living in it, and blockchain is helping them to have access to food and avoid the virus.

The WFP developed a blockchain network called Building Blocks to facilitate the distribution of resources during the Covid-19 pandemic. With this new technology, people can buy groceries in the shops around the camp, with every transaction being registered on the blockchain.

Originally, the refugees had to use their fingerprints to buy stuff. However, because of the pandemic, now they just need to scan their retinas.

According to the WFP website, Building Blocks is available to more than 45,000 people. In the next 18 months, they intend to implement it in the whole camp.

Conclusion: Blockchain and the hope for a better future

Despite the tough times brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, there are still brand-new initiatives emerging in all industries and fields aimed at reconstructing our lives, giving us all hope.

The blockchain technology has a prominent place in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. With its main characteristics – the capacity to store large amounts of data, decentralization and anonymity – it may be the correct solution to many real-world problems we are facing nowadays and will be facing tomorrow.

As a cryptocurrency exchange, Cripto InterCambio is a big supporter of all blockchain initiatives. After all, Blockchain is the central technology of the crypto market, and so we know just how useful it is. We hope that it can bring even more solutions to our present and the future.

