Six ways artificial intelligence can help fight Coronavirus

As the world reels under the effects of the Coronavirus, there is a frenetic activity in the world of artificial intelligence and data science to figure out ways this pandemic can be contained. There's significant progress made already.

In this post, we look at some of the ways artificial intelligence is helping fight the Coronavirus crisis, globally.

Forecasting the spread

Social media giants like Facebook have collaborated with Taiwan's National Tsing Hua University and Harvard University. These organizations share data pertaining to people's movement as well as population density maps, which helps identify areas susceptible to the spread of the virus, which helps deploy adequate preventive measures.

Information dissemination

In addition, social media platforms are using AI-driven tools to aggregate posts around Coronavirus to understand how people are responding to the threat. To combat misinformation, YouTube is directing people to official websites—such as those of the WHO—to enable people access authentic information and do not fall prey to misinformation.

Diagnosis

Artificial intelligence has facilitated the development of solutions that arm the front-line healthcare workers to better detect and monitor positive infection cases. As the virus infection explodes, the stress on these front-line healthcare workers increases. These solutions will not only reduce the stress on these personnel but also speed up the diagnosis, which will facilitate diagnosing more people at a relatively lower time.

Robots

Robots can be especially useful during this crisis as they can disinfect the hospitals and quarantine facilities, protecting humans from the risk of exposure. They can also be used to deliver food and medicines to help reduce human-to-human contact.

Drones

Especially useful in situations where cities are under lock-down, drones can quickly transfer samples to the testing facilities, as well as deliver medical supplies to healthcare providers. In addition, drones can be useful in surveillance and tracking violations of government orders mandating people to maintain social distancing.

Drug development

Supercomputers have been pressed into action to fast-track the development of drugs that can fight Coronavirus. Artificial intelligence is dramatically cutting down the time to research the drug molecules that can help develop antibodies and vaccines. While traditional research takes anywhere between four and five years, AI-driven research reduces this time to one year. This can accelerate manufacturing of the required drugs.

AI-driven studies are helping analyze data to release the structure of the proteins associated with the Coronavirus, which provides a deeper understanding of the virus and aid faster development of drugs. AI can also scan through the available drugs to quickly propose the use of existing drugs that might just help in the fight against the Coronavirus.

The world is fighting the Coronavirus crisis and advanced technology can be a potent weapon in this fight.

The article has been written by Neetu Katyal, Content and Marketing Consultant

She can be reached on LinkedIn.