Digital Defenders: COVID-19 Creates a Spotlight on Digital Health Tools

Inder Singh’s tipping point arrived fully loaded on Day Eight.

Sidelined with a mysterious illness for the previous week, Singh decided that day to take matters into his own hands, vowing to deliver the world from the “dark ages” of infectious disease control and prevention.

“We have no idea where illness is starting or spreading,” Singh told Forbes last spring. “I realized this at a system level...and then on a personal level when I came down with a mysterious illness. It’s shocking when you realize how much real-time, crowdsourced information we have about so many aspects of our lives—from how much our neighbor’s house costs to which side street will get us home fastest. And yet we have no idea what’s circulating around us—something that would have helped when doctors were trying to treat me after eight days of 104 [degree] fever. Infectious illness is the leading cause of death in young children around the world...it’s the biggest problem in healthcare globally. The only way to stop illness from spreading is to know where and when it’s starting.”