The Digital Human

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Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Aleks Krotoski explores the digital world

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The Digital Human: Series 20: SOS

21/06/2021

Series 20

BBC Radio 4 - The Digital Human, Series 20, SOS

Aleks Krotoski on how ordinary people stepped in to save lives during India's second wave.

When SOS tweets were sent out during India's second wave from people desperately seeking oxygen for friends & relatives technology allowed ordinary people to step into relief work.

Dr Charu Smita, a media researcher in Delhi explains how as the social contract between middle class Indians and the Government, to provide medical assistance, crumbled, people realised they'd need to mobilise to help save lives. 

Anirudh Deshmukh is a musician from Mumbai and when the second wave of Covid hit India and he saw the urgent tweets and posts from people searching for oxygen and hospital beds for loved ones he decided to do something about it. Using a combination of social media, WhatsApp and the meet up platform Clubhouse Anirudh began finding strangers hospital beds and oxygen. He quickly became inundated and along with others he began working day and night to locate beds and oxygen. Anirudh found himself having to decide who to save, a morally and ethically difficult decision even for a highly trained medic or relief worker. 

Dr Venkata Ratnadeep Suri explains how technology enabled people to form local microcosmic systems to allow those most in need get the oxygen they needed. Aleks also hears how in desperation people started to think very creatively about how to use apps and online social platforms to save lives. Sohini Chattopadhyay returned to Kolkata at the beginning of the pandemic to be with her mum. When her childhood friend got sick with Covid during the second wave her doctors suggested plasma therapy. It was going to be too difficult to go through official channels so Sohini turned to Tinder to find a suitable match. She set up a profile with the most flattering selfie she could find but explained she wasn't looking for a date but people who'd recently had Covid with the right blood type. Two people came forward. 

Produced by Kate Bissell 
Researched by Anna Miles

The Digital Human: Series 20

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