Sapio Umbrella, a unit of government advisory firm Sapio Analytics, has received support from Nobel Laureates Dr Michael Levitt and Colonel H R Naidu Gade in form of advisory engagement in strengthening its data driven decision support system for Covid-19.

Sapio is providing data-driven solutions for dynamically changing situation during Covid-19 and currently engaged with various state, local and central government bodies.

Dr Michael Levitt is professor of structural biology at the Stanford University and received Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2013. He has provided his research on the spread of the virus for use in India through Sapio Umbrella. Indian Army veteran H R Naidu Gade won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013.

Sapio has previously conceptualized pooled testing algorithm for India and created the concept of granular lockdown plan as some of the data driven decisions being used by the government. It has created predictive models that understand the spread of virus across the globe and connects the same to Indian contexts to be able to predict the spread on a hyper local level with reasonable accuracy.

Dr Levitt has done the very first large analysis with over 100,000 deaths in each epidemic using consistent EuroMOMO data on the same group of countries with a total population of 250 million. “The age range data leads to two remarkable observations- just 8% are under 65 years old and 50% are over 85 years old” he said about his research on the spread and mortality of COVID-19 virus vis-à-vis the mortality rates caused by the flu virus.

“Knowing the correct extent of the problems is critical for any decision making otherwise we will keep on solving a problem that never was. Today we have 3 major problems: morbidity and mortality due to the COVID-19 virus, economic impact that’s permeated to the bottom of the pyramid, social impact that has changed crime, essential services supply and so much more in the society. Since all these three problems are connected they need to be solved using optimization tools. We have built a system that provides lockdown level decisions and we are in the process of including all kinds of decisions in the system, including incentivization and policies on a hyper local level. With the help of these dignitaries, we will ensure India uses deep data in finalizing its decisions even on a granular level,” said Hardik Somani, COO of Sapio Analytics.