As our social structure unravels in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are being forced to find new ways to work and socialize. We are all in this together; we have given up our social lives, we have given up our old ways and how we used to work; we have scratched everything out of our old lives that involved us being around other people to help stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. And while we are doing our bit, there are people on the front line who are risking their lives every day to defeat this faceless enemy and their greatest weapon in this ongoing battle is technology. The wonders that we created in the pre-Covid-19 world are now being used to fight this virus. From robots to AI-powered drones, from mobile apps to CCTvs we are using all resources at our disposal to fight coronavirus.
List of Technologies is Helping Us in Our War Against Novel Corona Virus:
1. Smartphone Apps
2. Location Tracking Technology
3. Smart Imaging Technology
4. Robots and Drones
5. CCTVs
6. The Internet
7. Social Distancing Tech
1. Smartphone Apps
Many countries in Asia and Europe are using smartphone technology to help people fight the coronavirus in different ways. Using a big-data algorithm, Tencent and Alibaba have developed apps in China that give people different colors based on their health conditions. This color-coding of the populace tells them if they can travel or can enter public places like malls, subway stations or not. Corona 100-m, used in South Korea, is an app that has identified the locations of all the infected people in the country and tells you if you are within a hundred meters of them. A UK based startup has developed C-19 Covid Symptom Tracker, an app that allows people to self report their symptoms. The greatest advantage of this app is that it tells the authorities which areas have the highest concentration of covid-19 patients.
India is working on its ambitious mobile app to help its citizens fight corona and stay safe as well. The app will notify its users if they came in contact with a person who was later identified as a corona patient. The app works by using the patient’s location tracking history and then alerts all the people who were in the patient’s vicinity in the past few days. The app will also use short distance Bluetooth tracking technology that will also help the authorities in finding out who the patient came in contact with recently.
2. Location Tracking Technology
While this can be seen in a morally gray area and can be taken as a blatant disregard for people’s right to privacy, given the circumstances, many nations are using location tracking tactics to find out where an infected person went to and who he came in contact within recent days. This helps them in picking out the people who might have gotten this virus from this patient and putting them in quarantine.
Israel has allowed its secret service to track the movements of its Coronavirus patients using their mobile’s tracking technology to get something of a map telling them where the said patient went to in the last few days. Other countries like China, Taiwan, and South Korea have been using location tracking technology widely as well to curb the further spreading of the virus.
3. Smart Imaging Technology
To get a hold on the quickly worsening crisis, and to make sure that contact less temperature detection happens, China has been using AI-powered thermal cameras to find people in a crowd who are running a fever. This has been a very helpful tool in quickly separating the infected from the rest. China has also been using facial recognition technology to find out who is and who is not wearing a face mask.
4. Robots and Drones
In Wuhan, where the Coronavirus pandemic started, China has built an isolation ward that is run completely by robots. Everything from taking the temperature of the patients to disinfecting the ward, giving them food and their drugs, all of it is done by these robots. Robots have also been used by China and Shanghai in their quarantine facilities and to clean up their hospitals. All of this has been done to make sure that no health workers come in contact with the infected and catch the virus themselves. China is also using an AI-powered tool that can read thousands of CT Scans in twenty seconds with 96% accuracy. Drones fitted with loud phones and cameras are also being used by the police to break up crowds and tell individuals on the road to get back inside.
5. CCTVs
CCTVs have been used by the police in India, Korea, Shanghai, and other countries to track down those who came in contact with the infected people. One of the biggest examples of this would be when a family in Kerala, India returned from Italy after attending a wedding and went about the city putting 900 people in danger. These people were tracked down by the local authorities using CCTV footage of all the places the infected family went to after returning from Italy.
6. The Internet
While social media can be a cesspool of fake information and rumors, it can also be a well of information, provided that it comes from a trusted source. While we have all had some reservations about the way social media operates and how these major IT companies handle our data, we never knew just how powerful of a tool it could actually prove to be in a crisis like this. People on the internet are encouraging each other to stay at home and follow the proper hygiene guidelines set by medical professionals in the world. They are sharing information about how they can avoid getting the coronavirus and at the same time, making each other feel like they are all in this together.
Isolation could be a problem for a lot of people. Because of the covid-crisis, most of us are now locked in our homes, separated from our friends and even loved ones. But thanks to all the technological advancements we were able to make before the arrival of Covi-19 last year, we can still talk to each other, see each other and even play games and have parties, all of it while practicing social distancing.
A lot of people are also using social media to help people in need. Massive lockdowns across the world have left a lot of people either jobless or in serious money and supply crises. So people are doing supply drives and sending food and money to the people in need, all of it in a contactless fashion.
A lot of initiatives have also been launched by various governments and commoners and celebrities are donating generously to help the people in need.
7. Social Distancing Tech
The current state of things begs us to stay inside our houses and maintain distance from each other. But at the same time, we need to work. Almost all the industries in the world have now adopted the work-from-home format in which people are working during their office hours like they always did, but just from their homes. This is the single greatest undertaking of its kind in human history and naturally, there were no set procedures in place for a thing like this. But thanks to our technological prowess we were able to slip into our new lives quite easily. With high-speed internet and tools like Zoom, Skype, Meet, etc. people who work in teams can very easily conference call for hours. Applications like Slack, JIRA, and Mattermost are helping these people in working in a collaborative environment in a seamless fashion. Many schools, institutes, and colleges are holding video classes for their students and little kids are using the internet to learn new things. Technology has also made work from home for adults easier because the same technology keeps their children busy and so they can work without being distracted or disturbed.
Apps like Houseparty help you in putting together a party and invite all your friends over, without them entering your home. Social media is now more relevant than ever before because now social networking is the only form of contact for people. These are terrifying times and we need emotional support now more than ever before. With all the horrible things that are happening around us, the plummeting stock markets and crumbling economies, lack of supplies and the general vibe of uncertainty that covers everything in our world at the moment, we need each other. And social media is a panacea to most of our social distancing problems.
Conclusion
The IT industry has been the backbone of our society. From waiting on letters for weeks to arrive to being able to contact each other any time we like or want, technology has enabled us in more ways than we can possibly count. And now, it is helping us save the world from this ongoing pandemic. Technology is helping us in finding the infected faster, keeping them safe and caring for them better and less harmful for medical professionals, and it is helping us in knowing more about corona virus and finding a vaccine for it.
