Coronavirus vs Technology: Solutions to avoid virus transmission

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Coronavirus vs Technology: Solutions to avoid virus transmission

Author: Nelli Petrosyan

March 19, 2020

Novel Coronavirus is going global daily affecting all the spheres of life. Everything seemed to get worse when the World Health Organization confirmed COVID19 as pandemic. This brought serious changes to almost every society in the whole world. Companies decided to switch to “work from home” mode and it is still actual. Yet it’s unknown how long the virus will continue to remain active but large companies may face serious losses in case the picture does not change for the better. It’s reported that approximately 13.000 new cases emerge daily. The overall picture appears to be a danger for businesses as they can easily be affected throughout this worldwide struggle.


In the midst of recent developments, it’s way more interesting to follow the attitude of world tech companies and analyze how they are trying to decrease the transmission of the virus. In the ear of software solutions, it’s also possible to imagine preventing the spread of a disease with the help of innovative technologies. In fact, there are already some examples of “coronavirus vs technology” experiments being tested locally to solve the problem. 

Israel is testing cyber tracking to fight against coronavirus

It seems that Israelis have found a solution to this global problem. The government is now testing a new tool which will include real-time tracking of infected persons’ mobile phones to spot quarantine breaches and backtracking through metadata to figure out where they had been and who they had contacted. In short, Israel is using people’s cell phone location as a source of information. As the Prime Minister of Israel has declared there is a risk that Israeli society may associate this with enforcement or some kind of forced isolation but there is no aim like this in what is being done yet it is being implemented for public security reasons. 


China is using everything starting from colors to AI solutions

In the outbreak country of the virus a range of “coronavirus vs technology “tech methods have been used since COVID19 has arisen. That’s not even enough that robots deliver food to the people being quarantined in China but also a health rating system for smartphones was created. Based on three colors on the app- green, yellow and red, it’s decided whether a person should be quarantined or allowed in public spaces. All the data is being generated according to the user’s travel and medical histories. One more thing which is quite outstanding is another AI-powered infrared system which allows to detect a person’s body temperature and therefore unreveal their status of being infected.

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Businessinsider.com

U.S is analyzing its future policy against coronavirus 

Though the project is still in its early stages, the U.S. may soon launch a location data-based system to be able to estimate the Novel Coronavirus risks across America. Negotiations are being held with Facebook, Google and other tech giants to compare with health experts’ dispositions. Yet this won’t share any personal data of users in case of being live: “We’re exploring ways that aggregated anonymized location information could help in the fight against COVID-19. One example could be helping health authorities determine the impact of social distancing, similar to the way we show popular restaurant times and traffic patterns in Google Maps,” Johnny Luu, the spokesman of Google has said in a statement.

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