Design a Government Platform to Track and Allocate Scarce COVID Supplies in India

You are a product manager at India's national health ministry. Design a product that lets people check where COVID-19 resources are available and makes the distribution of those resources efficient. ```hint Availability has a shelf life Information about scarce resources is only useful if it is still true when someone acts on it. Think about who reports it, how often it changes, and what the product should do when there is not enough to go around. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Which resources are in scope: hospital beds of different types, medical oxygen, critical medicines, ambulances, testing, vaccines, or a subset? - Should the product only show where resources are, or also reserve and allocate them, for example by holding a bed for a patient or routing an oxygen delivery to a hospital? - Do state and district health authorities own hospital data and day-to-day allocation, with the ministry setting standards, or does the ministry run allocation directly? - Must the product work for people without smartphones or reliable internet, and in which languages? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Everyone involved on the demand side and the supply side, with a justified primary focus. - How availability data is collected, verified and kept current, and what happens when it is wrong. - A fair rule for allocating resources when demand exceeds supply. - Access for people with limited connectivity, literacy or language support. - A prioritized first release, success metrics, and guardrails covering fraud, privacy and load during surges. ### Follow-up Questions - Hospitals stop updating their bed counts once they are full, so the data goes stale. How would you detect and fix this? - How would you stop brokers or black-market sellers from exploiting the information or the booking flow? - Once a wave passes, what should happen to the product so it is ready for the next emergency?