A Reaction Paper About Responsive and Intelligent Suppression of COVID-19 and

Its Societal Impacts Using Spatial Technologies (RESIST): A Two-way Webinar

To highlight the Spatial technologies like Satellite Remote Sensing, Global Navigation
Satellite System(GNSS), and Geographic Information System (GIS) that focus on helping the
Filipinos to resist this COVID-19 pandemic, a two part Webinar on Responsive and Intelligent
Suppression of COVID-19 and Its Societal Impacts Using Spatial Technologies (RESIST)
organized by Caraga Center for Geo-Informatics is held on October 14 and 19 , 2020 as part of
learning events of SciTech4Dev 2020 which is an annual scientific tradition of Caraga State
University,
The RESIST itself is the acronym of the event to express that need to withstand, to fight
the action or effect of COVID-19. They feature on three technologies such as Feasibility
Analysis of Syndromic Surveillance using a Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological ModeleR
(FASSTER) for Early Detection of Diseases, Tracing for Allocation of Medical Supplies
(TrAMS) and Global Impact Detection from Emitted light, Onset of Covid-19 and NO2
(GIDEON).
The first part of the Webinar tackled about FASSTER, which was developed by Ateneo
de Manila University. The speakers were Dr. Maria Regina Justina E. Estruar, project leader of
the application. The two speakers were Mathematical Modeler, served as the foundation of
FASSTER, Mr. Lean Franzl L. Yao and Mr. Daniel Joseph P. Benito. The second part focus on
the two-remaining application, TrAMS which was discussed by Engr. Roseanne V. Ramos from
Univesity of the Philippines, project leader of TraMS, and GIDEON, presented by Mr. Nick
Tobia, Senior Consultant for social impact Cirrolytix Research Services. GE
The Advances in Science and Technology has a great impact on the society. Not only it
could help the economical status of one country but also it has a great application for Health in
terms of creating an epidemic model for various diseases specially the Covid-19 which allows
forecasting possible cases in a given area at a specified period of time. FASSTER collects data
sources from different systems to provide Covid-19 reports cased in real-time. This is a disease
surveillance used for detection, reporting, conformation, analysis and feedback for epidemic
monitoring. FASSTER was supported by mathematical models, that could identify barangay
hotspots using the spatial autocorrelation of infection rates. It could spot on a certain barangay
with high risk, together with its neighbor barangays. There is a model also that could determine a
barangay with relative risk, with a Bayesian Spatio-temporal Analysis of COVID-19. All of this
to increase or enhance the disease surveillance for this pandemic and to classify the risk per
province with indicators. We could determine which of the location that should be implemented
with lockdown.
We can never deny that the first to be affected by this pandemic are the medical front
liners. They went through a battle every day, helping, serving, caring for the affected people of
this virus. When the first case of COVID-19 was reported, we felt fear, and anxiety result for
panic buying which other people buy more than their necessities. Slowly, anxiety grew in the
Hospitals and publicizes their concerns about the lack of medical supplies. With the help of
TrAMS, the medical workers, front liners were equipped and safe in battling this virus. Like any
other application, it all start with acquisition/ collection of first hand and secondary datasets, then
it will be validated or preprocessed before the creation of spatial database. This is a support
system to monitor if a certain hospital is well stocked or out of stock of medical supplies. They
also receive information for donations to continuous supply. It is significant to give attention to
our front liners as it there is not easy to accomplish. We should also monitor not only the
physical aspect of humans but also their mental status.
GIDEON won the Best Use of Data in the NASA Space App Covid-19 challenge. It uses
satellite data and focus on data extract on detecting Nitrogen Dioxide as signature of fuel burning
and emitted light whish is a nighttime indicator of economic activity. It is a global coverage to
engage or monitor risk and sustainability index on how well the economic recovery can be
achieved in relation to infection rate and environmental impact. Whenever crisis fall upon in a
country, its economy will eventually downgrade, that is why we should be aware on how to
recover such event. With its fast data analyzation, it can produce fast, accurate forecasting whish
can help for the decision making of government, local or national to implement such policy that
could minimize the infection rate.
 All of these three technologies/ applications pave its way for effective and efficient
acquisition or reliable and real-time data for planning, operations and management. It is still
early to lose hope, we could still fight, RESIST, this COVID-19 pandemic with the support
systems implemented.