The Role of Modern Technologies (5G, AI, and IoT) in Fighting COVID-19 Pandemic

The recent global outbreak of COVID-19, or so-called Coronavirus, changed our thinking towards technology and its role in fighting global pandemics. Nations around the globe are working on finding a way to mitigate the spread of this virus and aiming to eliminate it, either by using traditional medical care methods, or by forcing extreme measures such as social distancing and lockdowns, or both. However, such solutions could only be effective for a certain period of time, as the virus continues to spread rapidly, and extreme measures such as lockdowns can bring significant challenges and cannot last forever.

Recently, china has built a mass surveillance network by including CCTV cameras (i.e. Skynet project) in collaboration with Tech giant ICT and video surveillance firms. The Skynet system has deployed around 200 million CCTV cameras in mainland China for better control and management of public security and safety, and to improve the response in case of natural disasters, epidemic and man-made accidents.

Modern technologies, such as the Fifth-Generation (5G) of wireless networks and Artificial Intelligence (AI), played a key role in conjunction with the Skynet system in dealing with COVID-19 pandemic. The use of these technologies provides a fast and accurate information about suspicious cases with COVID-19, as 5G networks have very fast connection, low latency, extremely large bandwidth and massive arrays of connection points; while AI is mainly utilized for facial recognition and estimating the number of infected people.

Furthermore, Internet of Things (IoT) technology are used in healthcare domain to identify the symptoms of the coronavirus. For instance, small sensors can be used to collect information about people with high temperature, or even certain medical information about family members of infected people.

In conclusion, the use of modern technologies in healthcare domain can definitely help fighting COVID-19, and it is of great importance to effectively integrate different technologies together, to provide accurate and instantaneous dashboard about the health situation to be sent to all stakeholders in pyramid structure and for different related sectors.