Application of technology towards reducing Covid-19.
Technology
This is the application of scientific doctrines / disciplines to the practical aims of human life with inherent will of change and manipulation of the environment as per the human perceptions.
Corona Virus Disease 2019 (Covid-19).
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an illness caused by a novel coronavirus now called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2. This was formerly called 2019-nCoV), which was first identified amid an outbreak of respiratory illness cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. It was initially reported to the WHO on December 31, 2019. On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global health emergency.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, its first such designation since declaring H1N1 influenza a pandemic in 2009.
The COVID-19 infection is transmitted by people carrying the virus. The disease can be spread from person to person through respiratory droplets expelled from the nose or mouth when a person coughs or sneezes.
These droplets can persist for some time on objects or surfaces around the person in question. An infection with COVID-19 can occur if you touch these objects or surfaces and then touch your eyes, nose or mouth.
COVID-19 can also be contracted by inhaling droplets from a sick person who has just coughed or sneezed.
This is why it is important to keep a distance of more than two meters from a sick person and to respect basic hygiene measures.
How we can use Technology to reduce covid-19.
With high transmissible and no effective vaccine or therapy, COVID-19 is now a global pandemic. Government-coordinated efforts across the globe have focused on containment and mitigation, with varying degrees of success.
Countries that have maintained low COVID-19 per-capita mortality rates appear to share strategies that include early surveillance, testing, contact tracing, and strict quarantine.
The scale of coordination and data management required for effective implementation of these strategies has in most successful countries relied on adopting digital technology and integrating it into policy and health care.
This Viewpoint provides a framework for the application of digital technologies in pandemic management and response, highlighting ways in which successful countries have adopted these technologies for pandemic planning, surveillance, testing, contact tracing, quarantine,
and health care.
Clinical issues.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can facilitate rapid diagnosis and risk prediction of COVID-19. A cloud-based AI-assisted computed tomography (CT) service is used to detect COVID-19 pneumonia cases in China. This technology processes CT images in seconds, differentiating COVID-19 from other lung diseases and speeding up the diagnostic process substantially.
COVID-Net, an open-source deep convolutional neural network design available to clinicians across the globe, can quickly detect COVID-19 cases from other lung diseases on chest x-rays. 28 Machine learning algorithms developed in China can predict the likelihood of developing acute respiratory distress syndrome and critical illness among infected patients. These prediction models can guide clinical decision making and resource allocation, identifying regions and hospitals in need of critical care resources and medical supplies.
Electronic fund transfer.
Technologies emerged that enables people to send and receive cash from any geographical location and vise versa allover the world. This too fight the crowding of peoples together which can give room for contacts can fuel the Covid-19 transfer. Some of these technologies include; world remit, western union, paypal, among others. These can transfer funds directly to the receiver bank account number or mobile money account depending on the technology used and it’s capabilities.
Digital health technology
This facilitate pandemic strategy and response in ways that are difficult to achieve manually. Countries such as South Korea have integrated digital technology into government coordinated containment and mitigation processes including surveillance, testing, contact tracing, and strict quarantine.
Contact tracing
Countries for example;- South Korea has implemented tools for aggressive contact tracing, using security camera footage, facial recognition technology, bank card records, and global positioning system (GPS) data from vehicles and mobile phones to provide real-time data and detailed timelines of people’s travel. South Koreans receive emergency text alerts about new COVID-19 cases in their region, and people who could have been in contact with infected individuals are instructed to report to testing centers and self-isolate. By identifying and isolating infections early, South Korea has maintained among the lowest per-capita mortality rates in the world.
Quarantine and self-isolation
The indiscriminate lock-downs for infection control in several countries have had severe socio-economic consequences. With technology, quarantine can be implemented on individuals who have been exposed to or infected with the virus, with less strict restrictions imposed on other citizens.
China’s quick response (QR) code system, in which individuals are required to fill out a symptom survey and record their temperature, allows authorities to monitor health and control movement. The QR code serves as a COVID-19 health status certificate and travel pass, with colour codes representing low, medium, and high risk; individuals with green codes are permitted to travel unrestricted, whereas individuals with red codes are required to self-isolate for 14 days.
China also uses Artificial Intelligence-powered surveillance cameras, drone-borne cameras, and portable digital recorders to monitor and restrict the gathering of people in public.
Electronic learning
E-learning is considered as new method of teaching rather than face to face teaching. E-learning has the ability to offer and share materials in all kinds of formats as e-mails, slideshows, videos, pdfs, and word documents. It is also conducting webinars (live online
class), communication with teachers via message and chat forum is also an option available to each other. This has fought the physical interactions which is a known main cause for spreading or transforming the noval corona-virus diseases.
Electronic shopping call it electronic commerce.
This enables different peoples from different geographical locations of the entire world to place order for different products ranging from food to actual materials or tools for home / factory/ office use. This platform render the ability to transfer funds online using the available different electronic money transfer technologies like mobile money, paypal, etc.
these reduces the human to human interaction thereby implementing social distancing which is a core trait towards fighting corona disease transfer.
Planning and tracking
Big data analytics, Data science and artificial intelligence (AI) have helped to facilitate COVID-19 preparedness and the tracking of people and the spread of infection in several countries. Tools such as migration maps, which use mobile phones, mobile payment applications, and social media to collect real-time data on the location of people, allowed Chinese authorities to track the movement of people who had visited the Wuhan market.
With these data, machine learning models were developed to forecast the regional transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 and guide border.
Conclusion
The integration of digital technology into pandemic policy and response could be one of several characteristic features of countries that have flattened their COVID-19 incidence curves and maintained low mortality rates. In the race to contain the spread of a highly transmissible virus, countries that have quickly deployed digital technologies to facilitate planning, surveillance, testing, contact tracing, quarantine, and clinical management have remained front-runners in managing disease burden. The comprehensive responses of countries that have been successful at containment and mitigation can provide insight to other countries that are still facing a surge of cases.
Author: Balyejusa Gusite (BIT, MIS).
References
- Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, et al. A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med 2020;382: 727–33.
- Ferretti L, Wymant C, Kendall M, et al. Quantifying SARS-CoV-2 transmission suggests epidemic control with digital contact tracing. Science 2020; 368: eeba6936.
- Society of Critical Care Medicine. US ICU availability for COVID-19. https://sccm.org/getattachment/Blog/March-2020/
- United-States-Resource-Availability-for-COVID-19/United-States-Resource-Availability-for-COVID-19.pdf?lang=en-U (accessed November 24, 2020).
- Johns Hopkins University. Coronavirus resource center: COVID-19 global cases. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html (accessed November 24, 2020).
- Zixin H, Qiyang G, Shudi L, Jin L, Xiong M. Artificial intelligence forecasting of Covid-19 in China. arXiv 2020; published online Feb 17. https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.07112 (preprint)
- WHO.public health surveillance of COVID-19 in humans caused by SARS-COV-2 infection(accessed November 24, 2020).
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