An anaesthetist with a MBA, a sports physician and an entrepreneur get together on a zoom call during
lockdown. A week later they have developed CovidFighter, an online screening
test for Covid-19 with a national tracking purpose. They reach out to Afro-IP to canvass the innovation and Afro-Buff
takes up the challenge.
I am generally feeling
fine but struggling with seasonal sneezes from rolling in the love grass and a
sore throat from the chilly autumnal air. With all the conversation around Covid-19
I had become concerned, perhaps paranoid, that I had picked up the disease. I entered
my date of birth – the last week of 2007 – accepted the terms of use and followed the easy steps to self-screening.
There you go, I am not
paranoid after all.
From an innovation
standpoint, CovidFighter is a classic example of enterprise resulting from
adversity illustrating that tough times lead to innovation. A welcome aspect of Covidfighter is that the code has been made available to others wanting to use it, through GetHub’s open source platform here. This means that other are available to use the code and copyright under a GPL -3.0 license.
The brand name is
communicative yet probably has a modicum of distinctiveness allowing it to be registered.
Of course, right now the online trade mark platform at CIPC is closed and it is
not possible for the initiative to register and protect the name or search to
see if they would infringe anyone else’s rights. This is a problem because it places
undue risk on the innovators. The public interest in this is also clear, if
there is any confusion resulting from conflicting brand names and this product
is as successful as it is hoped to be, damage could be done.
Curious to establish
if this type of innovation has been attempted anywhere else, I stumbled across the
CDC self help bot on its website (the CDC is the equivalent of the NCID in the
US) through this CNN article on testing priorities in the US. I took the test which asked similar
questions and revealed that if I were a US citizen, I would need to harden up a
bit and did not require a test, just yet. It may be that bison are tougher than buffalo or the NCID underestimates RSA's testing capabilities.
The CovidFighter initiative
is however, more than just a self screen test, the data behind it will be used for
a national and perhaps an international purpose. This is indicated in its terms
of use (unlike the CDC chatbot) and is transparent. It will be interesting to see whether the
public, in this time of solidarity and need, trust the government enough for
the initiative to successful. 
