Novel coronavirus has put several countries on high alert. On Tuesday, India has enforced an additional 21 days lockdown of the country to help fight the pandemic. The lockdown is implemented to make people less interactive and reduce the spread of COVID-19 as much as possible. Since the COVID-19’s outbreak, WhatsApp has been at the forefront of it, helping people contact each other as well as curbing the fake news.
Below are some of the initiatives taken by WhatsApp in order to help the world fight against the coronavirus:
Select Reliable Sources Of Information
The World Health Organisation (WHO) partnered with WhatsApp and Facebook to provide users with accurate information about COVID-19. The messaging services could potentially reach out to two billion people and allows them to have updated and most importantly, accurate news about the pandemic. The service can be accessed through a link that opens a conversation on WhatsApp. Users will simply need to send a message saying ‘Hi’ to activate the conversation and access a menu that can help answer any question by the user.
Helping Healthcare Professionals
Through WhatsApp, the medical professionals can learn how to stay in touch with patients, how to inform the community and host conferences from their home. They can also prepare quick answers to frequently asked questions and much more.
Helping Teachers
As the lockdown drags itself out because of the spread of COVID-19, schools and colleges have been shut, and it has been tough on students, especially those who are studying in grad school.
Through WhatsApp, teachers can contact students and exchange assignments, notes, deliver lessons via text and voice messages. For more information on this, click here.
Helping Local Businesses, Local Governments, and Organisations
One can introduce their organisation, stay in touch with their community, share accurate data and information. They can also connect with their team, answer common questions and much more.
When it comes to local businesses, as a member of the local business community, one can serve and manage their business in the time of pandemic spread. Businesses can use WhatsApp’s free Business App to handle queries, feature useful information with their profiles. Businesses can also share details about their services.
WhatsApp’s Partnership The India Government
With the Indian government, WhatsApp launched a chatbot to create awareness about the COVID-19. The citizens of India can text WhatsApp bot called MyGov Corona Helpdesk to get instant authentic answers to their coronavirus queries such as symptoms and how they could seek help.
The bot was built by Haptik, a Mumbai-based firm and the information was provided by the Ministry of Health of India.
Other organisations can also set up similar chatbot mechanisms at a landing page for WhatsApp’s Coronavirus resources. The bot runs through WhatsApp’s business app interface and maintains WhatsApp’s encryption along with allowing organisations to manage their services.
You Can Help Prevent False News
It’s WhatsApp’s tradition to spread the news about even the smallest of the events that take place. Think about how many messages you received related to COVID-19 since the start of the outbreak, now think about how many of them are genuine information. To fact check everything that comes through, you can get on the official sources or fact-checkers. If you are unsure about it, do not spread the news.
