COVID-19 and Artificial Intelligence: the pandemic pacifier

Abstract

COVID-19 remains a threat to the entire world. In an attempt to curb its spread and facilitate its treatment, the technological tool that is Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being researched as a potential alternative to conventional methods. Industrial Revolution 4.0 marks the dawn to the combination of digital, physical and biological systems, by application of digital skills such as Blockchain, Internet of things, Artificial Intelligence and Big data. AI tools in SARS-COV-2 pandemic are highly competitive to human performance, such as rapid screening and diagnosis of the disease, surveilling the efficacy of the treatment, keeping record and depicting active cases and mortality, inventions of medications and vaccines, relieving the workload of healthcare workers and extinguishing the spread of the disease. Contact tracing platforms like Aarogya Setu App, implemented by the Government of India, Australian Government's COVID Safe app, Trace Together- a Bluetooth-based contact tracing app developed in Singapore; based on syndromic mapping/surveillance technology. Artificial intelligence will become a mainstay in both the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 as well as similar pandemics in future. The application and system development will be challenging; the accuracy and rapidity of its use far outweigh this drawback. The current global technological leaders have proven that the retro modification of current data systems and applications have been indispensable in the war on COVID-19, thus permanently securing their development and application in future.