COVID-19: Doing our part

Across the globe, hope is growing again as distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine has begun. This is a critical time as we work towards increasing the health and safety of everyone. At LINK, we have played a key role in contributing to the progress of ensuring health and safety during the pandemic. From safety updates to vaccine notifications to test results, we’ve played a part every step of the way. Here, we share some of the ways we’re doing our part.

Recently, we’ve worked with various entities to increase the success of vaccinations through partnerships with governments, health care organizations, and more. Michele Iozzo, Vice President of Sales in Central Europe, says, “We are proud to support the important fight against COVID.”

Norway

Since the start of the pandemic and lockdown in March 2020, we have worked with various government institutions, both at the national level, as well as the county and municipality levels. We’ve supported Norway with our LINK Messaging Gateway and SMS messages. Public sector clients at the national level include:

• Ministry of Justice and Emergency Preparedness, on behalf of the Government
• Ministry of Health
• The Norwegian Directorate of Health
• Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning
• National Institute of Public Health (FHI)
• Norwegian Health Network
• Norwegian counties and municipalities

Some examples of the typical SMS that we send are:

• Information about press meetings
• Links to updated COVID-19 information and restrictions nationally and locally
• Recommendations to download the COVID-19 infection tracking app
• Information from the infection tracking app if you have been in contact with an infected person
• Results from a COVID-19 test
• Information about and appointments for the vaccination

Austria

There has been a strong pandemic focus in Austria. We serve all relevant ministries by offering communication between governmental agencies, as well as communicating to get Austrians abroad home. Large cities and national states in Austria are supported by us with notifications of COVID test results, communication between cities, and coordination of staff. In addition, NGOs, like the Red Cross, use our services to send COVID test results, coordinate elderly care, and provide 2FA for apps dealing with COVID tracking.

Bulgaria

Our Bulgarian team helped develop an app called Virusafe, which integrates all relevant information about COVID-19 in Bulgaria. It also allows users to voluntarily inform health authorities of their health status. The system has integrations with

• GPS
• Municipalities
• Regional Health Inspectorate
• Ministry of Interior Affairs
• border police
• fire departments

The developed software and work of the developers were donated for free. The SMS is free for users and we provide the 2FA verification in the app. Additionally, we serve the Bulgarian government with a COVID-19 Viber channel, which sends notifications and updates to users in real-time.

Denmark

On behalf of the Danish government and police, we send out SMS messages reminding the Danish population to follow all the given guidelines and restrictions. Furthermore, we also handle all SMS communication regarding COVID-19 tests done in test centers in Denmark.

Poland

Poland’s national immunization program against COVID-19 has selected our services along with our IT partner. The government launched an SMS service on long code numbers that allows Polish citizens to sign up for vaccinations via SMS.

We are continuing our contributions in other countries across Europe as well. If you’d like to get in touch to see how we can help in your country or to learn more about our work, contact us.