Coronavirus: Engineering student develops pendant to ensure social distancing

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Are you finding it difficult to maintain the mandatory one meter distance from other people to avoid coronavirus infection? Do you forget to wash your hands regularly? Don't fret as an engineering student in Punjab has found a solution for all such problems.

Prabin Kumar Das of Lovely Professional University (LPU) has developed a device named 'kawach' (shield) which vibrates and glows in case someone breaches the user's safe space of one metre.

The device which can be worn as a pendant comes equipped with a 'hand wash reminder' feature that beeps every 30 minutes to remind the user to wash his/her hands.

It also has a temperature sensor that sends an alert to the user through SMS in case his/her body temperature crosses the prescribed limit.

"Kawach is a low cost and easy to carry device that comprises of an LED, vibrator, controller, battery, human body temperature sensor, ultrasonic sensor, switch and a storage card," Das told PTI.

"I noticed that people were finding it so difficult to maintain safe distance despite knowing how important it is. I thought the reminders we are giving each other are not enough and we need a constant reminder, hence I worked on the pendant," he added.

The device once commercialised will be available at a price of around Rs 500 and if produced in bulk can be a made available at Rs 400.

According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, social distancing is a non-pharmaceutical infection prevention and control intervention implemented to avoid or decrease contact between those who are infected with a disease-causing pathogen and those who are not, so as to stop or slow down the rate and extent of disease transmission in a community.

"While the whole world is grappling to find a vaccine for COVID-19, 'kawach' is our effort to contain the spread of this deadly virus," said Lovi Raj Gupta, Executive Dean of Science and Technology at LPU.

"We have already tested it internally and are now looking for the right partners to commercialise it," he added.

Das was supervised by faculty members at the university including Rajesh Singh, Anita Gehlot and Varun Panwar.

The number of coronavirus cases in India rose to 562 on Wednesday while the death toll due to COVID-19 in the country was revised down to nine, according to Health Ministry data.

The ministry in its updated figures on Wednesday morning, stated the second death reported in Delhi was COVID-19 negative, thus bringing down the death toll to nine in India.