Covid support: Good news for Airtel customers, check details

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New Delhi: Bharti Airtel has rolled out a range of Covid support initiatives for customers by leveraging its digital platform.

With this, the telco joins a growing list of companies that have introduced digital tools to help people amid the deadly second wave of the pandemic.

Airtel has integrated easily accessible bouquet of Covid support resources and related information in the Airtel Thanks app’s Explore section, the company said in a statement.

“Covid SOS aggregates verified and updated contacts for important supplies such as medicines, oxygen, plasma donors, ambulance, hospital beds, and testing centres. With a few clicks, the platform connects users to these service providers/resources and tries to ensure that users do not have to waste precious time to access this data,” the statement said.

The information available on ‘Covid SOS’ is verified by their teams, it said and added the platform is powered by Airtel IQ.   “Airtel Thanks users can also book a vaccination slot for themselves and their loved ones through the app,” the statement said.

With the Cowin platform APIs (Application Programming Interface) integrated with Airtel Thanks app, information on nearest vaccination centres and available slots is updated on a real-time basis.

To avail relevant resources, users would need to download the latest version of Airtel Thanks app (iOS, Android), go to the ‘Explore’ section and click on the Covid support banners.

Another feature allows businesses to create free helpline for employees with Airtel IQ.

“Business of all sizes can set up free Covid Helpline for their employees within two minutes with Airtel IQ – a cloud communication platform. Airtel is giving 5,000 minutes with each Helpline account so that businesses can stay connected with their employees and organise their efforts,” it said.

The feature is expected to be particularly useful for medium to small sized companies that can set up a secure helpline instantly without any in-house telco infrastructure.

India in a day recorded 3,26,098 Covid-19 cases that took the tally to 2,43,72,907, while 3,890 new fatalities pushed the death toll to 2,66,207, according to Union Health Ministry data updated on May 15.

A massive rise in infections during the second deadly wave of the pandemic has led to hospitals in several states reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen, beds, and other critical infrastructure.

The vaccination drive in India was rolled out on January 16 with healthcare workers getting inoculated and vaccination of frontline workers started from February 2. Subsequently, it was opened for different age groups.

The total number of Covid vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 18 crore mark. While people have rushed to register for the jab, certain states have flagged limited availability of vaccines.

Right from giants like Facebook and Google to startups such as HealthifyMe have introduced a slew of tools over the past few weeks to help people find slots for vaccination appointments.

Drawing on the country’s proven tech prowess and massive reach of social media platforms, many companies and developers are also enabling people looking for resources like hospital beds, ventilators and oxygen cylinders.