As
coronavirus (COVID-19) quickly spreads all over the world. All the researchers and startups across the globe are already pivoting their technologies to help and fight with the spread of this deadly virus.
Existing modern solutions in diagnostics, monitoring, and molecular development are being used as powerful tools to help fight the current pandemic. These technologies can help identify outbreaks hotspots, prevent infections, reduce the need for physical contact in diagnostics, and even work towards developing a vaccine for COVID-19.
So, here are some techy things which are becoming helpful :
As China initiated its response to the virus, it leaned on its
strong technology sector and specifically
artificial intelligence (AI), data science, and technology to track and fight the pandemic while tech leaders, including Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei and more accelerated their company's healthcare initiatives.
a) AI to identify, track and forecast outbreaks: The better we can track the virus, the better we can fight it. By analyzing news reports, social media platforms, and government documents, AI can learn to detect an outbreak. Tracking infectious disease risks by using AI is exactly the service Canadian startup
BlueDot provides. In fact, the BlueDots's AI warned of the threat several days before the
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization issued their public warnings.
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| AI imaging report |
b) AI to help diagnose the virus: Artificial Intelligence company Infervision launched a coronavirus AI solution that helps front-line healthcare workers detect and monitor the disease efficiently. Imaging departments in healthcare facilities are being taxed with the increased workload created by the virus. This solution improves the CT diagnosis speed.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba also built an AI-powered diagnosis system they claim is 96% accurate at diagnosing the virus in seconds.
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| Almost all world is affected |
c) Process healthcare claims: It's not only the clinical operations of healthcare systems that are taxing but also the business and administrative divisions as they deal with the surge of patients. A blockchain platform offered by Ant Financial helps speed up claims processing and reduces the amount of face-to-face interaction between patients and hospital staff.
d) Drones deliver medical supplies: one of the fastest ways to get medical supplies where they need to go during a disease outbreak is with drone delivery.
Terra Drone is using its unmanned aerial vehicles to transport medical samples and quarantine material with minimal risk between Xinchang Country's disease control centre and the People's Hospital. Drones also are used to patrol public spaces, track non-compliance to quarantine mandates, and for thermal imaging.
e) Robots sterilize, deliver food and supplies and perform other tasks: Robots aren't susceptible to the virus, so they are being deployed to complete many tasks such as cleaning and sterilizing and delivering food and medicine to reduce the amount of human-to-human contact. UVD robots from
Blue Ocen Robotics use ultraviolet light to autonomously kill bacteria and viruses. In China, Pudu Technology deployed its robots that are typically used in the catering industry to more than 40 hospitals around the country.
f) Develop drugs: Google's
DeepMind division used its latest AI algorithms and its computing power to understand the proteins that might make up the virus, and publishes the findings to help others develop treatments.
BenevolentAI uses AI systems to build drugs that can fight the world’s toughest diseases and is now helping support the efforts to treat coronavirus, the first time the company focused its product on infectious diseases. Within weeks of the outbreak, it used its predictive capabilities to propose existing drugs that might be useful.
g) Advanced fabrics offer protection: Companies such as Israeli startup
Sonovia hope to arm healthcare systems and others with face masks made from their anti-pathogen, anti-bacterial fabric that relies on metal-oxide nanoparticles.
h) AI to identify non-compliance or infected individuals: While certainly a controversial use of technology and AI, China’s sophisticated surveillance system used facial recognition technology and temperature detection software from
SenseTime to identify people who might have a fever and be more likely to have the virus. Similar technology powers "smart helmets" used by officials in Sichuan province to identify people with fevers. The Chinese government has also developed a monitoring system called Health Code that uses big data to identify and assesses the risk of each individual based on their travel history, how much time they have spent in virus hotspots, and potential exposure to people carrying the virus. Citizens are assigned a colour code (red, yellow, or green), which they can access via the popular apps WeChat or Alipay to indicate if they should be quarantined or allowed in public.
i) Chatbots to share information: Tencent operates
WeChat, and people can access free online health consultation services through it. BeeBot is also used in these terms as well. Chatbots have also been essential communication tools for service providers in the travel and tourism industry to keep travellers updated on the latest travel procedures and disruptions.
j) Supercomputers working on a coronavirus vaccine: The cloud computing resources and supercomputers of several major tech companies such as
Tencent,
DiDi, and
Huawei are being used by researchers to fast-track the development of a cure or vaccine for the virus. The speed these systems can run calculations and model solutions is much faster than standard computer processing.
So, this is how TECH is helping us to tackle COVID-19. In a global pandemic such as COVID-19, technology, artificial intelligence, and data science have become critical to helping societies effectively deal with the outbreak.
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