The Wuhan virus or COVID-19, has struck every country. From what, it seems humans are reeling under a new reality now, all in a distressed and dreaded state of mind. Healthcare industry is taking its biggest hits since centuries, and economies are suffering from its unpreparedness. In this moment of global trauma, all failures, be it in healthcare, or in the technological sector, are widely visible.
Solution? If the world would have been more acceptable to the new disruptive technologies like Blockchain or AI, or IoT, then probably the whole tracing operation, health surveillance system, and supply chain would have been managed easily. But How? To back our claims as to how blockchain and AI solutions can help in pandemic situations like COVID-19, here are few resolutions-
What feature of Blockchain would have helped? The biggest advantage of Blockchain is “elimination of intermediatory parties”. Along with this blockchain helps prevents data loss and banishes hackers from tampering of critical data. If blockchain technology would have been brought into practice then, critical epidemic details and traceability of COVID-19 suspected patients would have been easier.
How 5G+ enabled applications would have helped in controlling the pandemic? It’s true, that 5G is yet to be commercialized, but it could have played an important role in pandemic control and prevention. Since 5G is majorly purposed to enhance the live streaming experience, and telemedicine—live streaming of entire construction of hospitals that China built within 10 days, would have assisted several developing countries to follow the footsteps. This was indeed available initially to China citizens, but later a video was released for the world to see, as reported by China Daily.
“New generation information technologies have unique advantages and can play an important role in responding to major public health challenges.”–QI Xiaoxia
How solutions involving Artificial Intelligence would have assisted? It is said, in crisis, collaboration is the key. Artificial Intelligence combined with Machine Learning could have predicted the pandemic–How? Had the initial data (movement of the virus) through AI being tracked, the places of the outbreak would have been predicted beforehand, further saving delayed and eventful country lockdowns. Only places that came under the red zone would have been sealed or quarantined.
More, assistance in diagnosing the disease– With Bigdata and AI clubbed together, hospitals can track previous medical records of patients, and can determine whether the person is likely to get infected or is already having the COVID-19.
Apart from this, through AI applications, i.e. if facial recognition is being installed in citizen surveillance systems, it can help identify people exhibiting external signs of COVID-19. This can also be installed on traffic signals, restaurants, hotels, or in crowded streets.
“We need to come together as companies, governments, and scientists and work to bring our best technologies to bear across biomedicine, epidemiology, AI, and other sciences. The COVID-19 literature resource and challenge will stimulate efforts that can accelerate the path to solutions on COVID-19.”–White House
Final Words- The coronavirus pandemic has absorbed nearly all healthcare and technological resources, but to no avail in making that growth curve flattened. However, innovation has since always remained a key to changing the dynamics of the present and future. China has already begun its widespread adoption of blockchain technology–through BSN (this will help new companies and startups to bring an innovative change in the near future) that is set to launch on April 25. AEOlogic consistently helps the Indian Government to make such disruptive changes that will contribute to the betterment of the economy.
