Mutant Slayer: Global COVID-19 Variant Contact Tracing Initiative

COVID-19Contacts.org (CV-19.org) has developed a strategic blockchain data analytics-driven technology vehicle and an innovative systems intervention approach to the way the world responds to outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics that will enable a more sufficient, effective, and efficient defeat of this COVID-19 ‘monster’—once and for all.

Prof. Dr. Myles E. Mangram, MBA, DBA

The world is at war against an insidious adversary—COVID-19—that has resulted in a catastrophic loss of lives and livelihoods not seen in over 100 years. While several promising vaccines have begun to stem the tide of this global crisis, the rapid emergence of a number of more highly transmissible and more deadly mutant COVID-19 variants threatens to worsen and prolong this tragedy.

 Globally, the World Health Organization reported nearly 139 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 2.9 million deaths (as of April 15, 2021). At the same time, the International Monetary Fund estimates that the global economy shrunk by 4.4% in 2020 (over US $87.5 trillion)—the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

  CV-19.org’s solution addresses several related problems relevant to a strategic COVID-19 variant contact tracing mitigation and control response to this worldwide crisis: 1) the need for global and nationally coordinated contact tracing infrastructures; 2) the need for ‘maximum suppression’ variant contact tracing systems interventions; 3) the need for strategic execution vehicles to implement these interventions; and 4) the need for blockchain data analytics-enabled technology innovations to support these vehicles.

CV-19.org’s solution serves the billions of unvaccinated people worldwide and their respective national governments. It does this by focusing our solution on a narrow ‘value of outcomes’ range of actual and potential COVID-19 case infections, which includes:

Delivery of world-class COVID-19 technology and data analytics capabilities - Including CV-19.org’s blockchain data analytics-enabled contact tracing technology platform and empowering Contact Tracing-as-a-Service solutions.

Development of a ‘COVID-19-busting’ variant contact tracing infrastructure - CV-19.org delivers improved national contact tracing infrastructures through its cutting-edge technology platform; inclusive, collaborative, and innovative Contact Tracing-as-a-Service business model; and advanced COVID-19 systems intervention resources and capabilities.

 Execution and coordination of complementary nationally-coordinated ring vaccination control mechanisms – CV-19.org’s ring vaccination initiatives, supported by its variant contact tracing infrastructure innovations, help unlock the full potential of these efforts by improving data coordination, speed and flow, integration, and analyses necessary to drive more effective and efficient pandemic mitigation and control.

 Enhancement of global and national preparedness – The contact tracing resources and capabilities of CV-19.org, along with those of its ecosystem of global strategic partners, will greatly enhance the public health competencies within nations around the world by building longer-term sustainable capacity for response to COVID-19 and future disease threats.

The public good provided by CV-19.org’s solution in relation to the COVID-19 crisis should be viewed through the lens of the ‘value of outcomes’ delivered.

In support of national governments, CV-19.org’s TRaCE™ Platform and related process innovations have the potential to benefit societies by helping defeat COVID-19.  Targeted positive societal impacts of this outcome include:

• Helping save lives
• Helping restore economies
• Creating higher-paying jobs
• Enhanced public health protection of underserved and disadvantaged communities
• Contribution to the advancement of knowledge within the field of COVID-19 and other anticipated future pandemics.

 CV-19.org will help national governments achieve these outcomes by improving data-driven systems interventions (such as our proposed variant contact tracing/ring vaccination approach) and leveraging advances in ‘force-multiplying’ ‘COVID-19-busting’ technologies—in this case, through our advanced, nationally-coordinated ‘blockchain data analytics-driven technology Platform.

 For the individual populations these governments serve, the social value of outcomes for our solution includes dramatic improvements in their public health and safety, restored and more prosperous economies,  increased job opportunities, and improvements to their quality of life that have been shattered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 CV-19.org delivers this solution at a fair cost to governments, who then provide these benefits to their populations at no cost.

CV-19.org’s technology-enabled variant contact tracing/ring vaccination solution is projected to  have a net positive benefit of more efficiently protecting between 8% to 10% more people worldwide who might have otherwise been missed with current mass vaccination approaches due to vaccine logistical inefficiencies, anticipated vaccine hesitancies, and the emergence of more transmissible and more deadly mutant/variant COVID-19 viruses.

 These potential adverse impacts will be even greater in disadvantaged communities throughout the world. In that regard, CV-19.org is placing special emphasis on these communities where long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put billions of people at greater risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19. These increased public health disparities, along with inadequate funding and infrastructure for rapid mass vaccinations and other public health measures, have also put these communities at greater risk of propagating COVID-19 variants.

 Digital contact tracing technologies have already proven the effectiveness of CV-19.org’s COVID-19 mitigation and control innovation in nations worldwide. At the same time, ring vaccination has already demonstrated the capability of controlling or eradicating global pandemics. As a public benefit company, our variant contact tracing/ring vaccination innovation suggests the implementation of a more effective, efficient, and faster way to help defeat COVID-19 worldwide.

CV-19.orgs solution and related impacts are designed to rapidly scale to have a direct impact on the billions of lives severely impacted by COVID-19. It will scale this solution by: 1) immediately deploying its blockchain analytics-enabled TRaCE Platform and related Contact Tracing-as-a-Service/ring vaccination systems intervention approach for the countries most adversely impacted by COVID-19 variants (including the U.S., Brazil, and India) within the first year of Trinity funding; 2) quickly expanding this solution to other designated “hot spot” nations by year two; 3) deploying surge capacity worldwide to help achieve eradication or drastic global mitigation of COVID-19 outbreaks in year three; and 4) working long-term with various government agencies dedicated to establishing more permanent contact tracing mitigation and control response infrastructure and capabilities.

  For instance, the U.S. Biden-Harris Administration has already allocated $92.7 billion through 2024 to fund U.S. and worldwide efforts dedicated to the surveillance, testing, and contact tracing of COVID-19 and anticipated future viral outbreaks.  Further, it has targeted an additional $8 billion/year in permanent funding for a dedicated new agency (U.S. Public Health Jobs Corp), in perpetuity, to help battle COVID-19 and anticipated future pandemics—with the ultimate goal of helping ensure that this never happens again.    

The impacts (value of outcomes) discussed earlier in this application will be digitally monitored and measured (while maintaining the utmost protections in patient/contacts privacy and security) by: 1) the social value of outcomes achieved; 2) the savings by governmental agencies through greater efficiencies achieved in disease surveillance and contact tracing workforce performances; 3) the economic recovery and growth of economies at the national, state, and local levels; and 4) most importantly, the reduction in the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths.

 For example, CV-19.org’s TRaCE Platform is a highly capable outbreak response digital tool for contact tracing to measure public health outcomes. It is designed for the use by national and state-level governments and CV-19.org’s ecosystem of professional investigators/contact tracers. Additionally, CV-19.org could leverage the ‘net health impact’ measurement tool developed Trinity Challenge member, the Imperial College of London.

 Additionally, the national economic impacts of COVID-19 could be quantifiably measured by key national economic indicators, such as, but not limited to, fluctuations in national gross domestic product (GDP) and other micro and macro-economic modeling tools.

 CV-19.org plans to build upon the COVID-19 contact tracing measurement tools currently used worldwide by its global strategic partners. 

The major 3-year barriers confronting CV-19.org include:

Financial Barriers – Lack of operational capital investments into CV-19.org.

• Barrier Strategies – Leverage current and prospective impact investment and government funding resources (grants, contracts and cooperative agreements), including:
  • The Global Impact Investment Network-managed Response, Recovery, and Resilience Investment Coalition (R3 Coalition) for COVID-19 (CV-19.org selected as a featured social enterprise for impact investment capitalization matching)
  • Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) -  a leading impact investment organization dedicated to increasing social good capital flows (SOCAP20 Entrepreneur Award Winner).
  • National Science Foundation/Small Business Innovation Research Program – Shortlisted for $250,000 grant for R&D to complete CV-19.org’s COVID-19 technology platform development and integration.
  • Department of Homeland Security – Shortlisted for $10 million contract award for COVID-19 contact tracing solutions testing and commercialization.

 Market Barriers – Include infrastructure challenges, lack of governmental policy support, education, and qualification gaps related CV-19.orgs network of highly skilled ‘next-level’ professional investigators/contact tracers.

 Barrier Strategies – Provide government agencies with contact tracing support via our TRaCE Platform and Contact Tracing-as-a-Service (CTaaS) development framework; limit engagement to nations with sufficient governmental policy support; and implement an ongoing comprehensive contact tracing education and training program as part of CV-19.org’s CTaaS framework. 

Current strategic partnerships and collaborations include:

• ConnecTeam - Leader in workforce management software development
• IBM PartnerWorld - Global leader in cloud platform/ cognitive solutions
• PathCheck-MIT -  Contact tracing software development consortium
• SalesForce/Mulesoft – CRM market leader
• TransUnion/TLOxp - Database and data analytics company.
• Arizona State University - #1 innovation university 

Beyond the money, keys to our success as a Trinity Challenge Grand Prize awardee include:

• Shared values, vision, and mission
• Valuable synergies between the Trinity Challenge and CV-19.org
• Shared understanding of the ineffectiveness of governments at getting the right people access to the right data at the right time and coordinating insights gained across data sources and sectors to support the identification, response, and recovery from health emergencies like COVID-19
• Shared understanding that we need to take an immediate “whole of world” approach to stop COVID-19
• Shared understanding of the significant common challenges confronting decision makers and the need to harness data to protect against public health emergencies through efficiency, effectiveness, and sufficiency
• Synergistic understanding of the need for: immediate concrete actions that make better use of data; need for increased efficient access to this data; and need for stronger data provider/decision maker collaboration
• Shared understanding of the need to look to the longer term beyond the immediate devastating impacts of COVID-19
• Synergistic understanding of the need for more global and national systems of data governance and access protocols
• Shared understanding of the need to shift the infectious disease mitigation and control paradigm to the ‘value of outcomes’

A key to CV-19.org’s success as a Trinity Challenge Grand Prize awardee will be the connection of CV-19.org with select synergistic founding members and Key Individual Collaboration Prospects (KICPs), including:

• The Global Virome Project (GVP) – For over a decade the GVP has been driving collaborative scientific initiatives to discover viral threats and stop future pandemics. KICPs  include Dr. Dennis Carroll, GVP Chair.
• Google – Google’s participation in the Challenge builds on its work to leverage its COVID-19 digital tools (i.e., collaboration with Apple developed the premier digital contact tracing app). KICPs include Dr. David Feinberg, VP of Google Health.
• The Imperial College London (ICL) –ICL has developed a tool to estimate the net health impact of COVID-19 policies.  KICPs include Professor Ara Darzi, Co-Director of ICL Health Innovation Institute.
• McKinsey & Company (McKinsey) – McKinsey’s COVID-19 skillset includes data tools and deep research and insights.  KICPs include Mitch Cuddihy, Engagement Manager.
• University of Cambridge (UC) – UC is world-leading in terms of data science capabilities. KICPs include Professors Carola Schonelieb and Anna Vignoles.