The hackathon organizers said they were in contact with Slack's CEO or CTO (cannot remember which one), and they continued trying to add people over most of the weekend.
It seems like the Slack team was able to help, but they didn't disclose how exactly [1].
[1] https://twitter.com/WirvsVirusHack/status/124104522882975334...
I believe the government will pat itself on the back as will do the organizers, but having lived through it and genuinely tried to help people I can only count it as one of the worst wastes of time I ever experienced.
Sadly, because the idea behind it was totally great. And I believe if a team already had formed before that, that they could achieve interesting results. But going in and trying to just be help- and impactful was doomed.