The U.S. Army has repurposed an existing counterterrorism technology for use in coronavirus tracking amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Fedscoop reported Tuesday.
The Joint Analytic Real-time Virtual Information Sharing System, originally designed for terrorism surveillance, now also helps the Army identify where the virus spreads and inform decisions on what facilities to close.
Everbridge, a firm specializing in emergency communications, originally developed JARVISS in 2018 to address shootings. JARVISS now uses layers of open-source content to inform commanders on coronavirus-related happenings.
“The way that JARVISS was designed was to be an open platform where any threat to the Army or to the U.S. globally could be brought into the system and analyzed,” Jeff Kahler, a JARVISS program manager at Everbridge, told Fedscoop.
James Allen, the JARVISS program manager from the Army’s side, said other military and federal entities addressing COVID-19 have also adopted the system's use for tracking.
