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Covid Chatbot PH Journey

• 2 min • 362 words
python web dev tech life

After we created the project AI chatbot, I am still eager to learn coding with Python. So, out of curiosity, I asked myself, “What if I create a chatbot on messenger?” During that time, Covid-19 cases in the Philippines was actively monitored. So, I hunt for available APIs that time but I can’t find any.

However, there was this one website which provides data about Covid-19 in the Philippines which is from the Department of Health (DOH). I examined the website using the google chrome developer tools (I always refer to this as inspect element) to try and find possible source for the data. I clicked all the items under network tab until I found out the source of the data. I wasn’t expecting it at all since I was just tinkering around. I then used this API for my version 1 which is I think created using ArcGIS. After sometime, the API was taken down by the DOH. I don’t know the reason but I think that too many API calls or traffic was on the server. I knew that I am only borrowing the API so I fetch data only once a day since DOH only updates once a day.

The need for version 2 with a new data source arises. The search for new source of data has commenced. I found https://coronavirus-ph-api.herokuapp.com/ and https://covid19.mathdro.id/ and used them. Unlike the data source for version 1, the new data source does not have data on the Persons under Monitor (PUM) and Persons under Investigation (PUI), so I removed them. I added a new feature for version 2 which is Region.

Eventually, I sticked only to a single data source which is https://coronavirus-ph-api.herokuapp.com/. I added new features which is rates, and fresh cases. I called this changed version 3.

The DOH again changed their public data source which is a dependency for the version 3 data source. The search for new data source has again commenced. I eventually sticked to https://disease.sh/ as the new and current data source. Many features are also added which includes active cases, critical cases, tests conducted, total, and per million.

You can check the project on this link.