Combating Covid-19 with the Help of AI, Analytics and Automation

In a global crisis, the use of technology to gain insights into socio-economic threats is indispensable. In the current situation where the entire world faces the global pandemic of Covid-19, finding a cure and distributing it is a difficult task. Fortunately, today we have new and advanced technologies like AI, automation, analytics and more that can perform a better job. While AI is boon in the technological world, it has the potential to orchestrate troves of data to discover connections in the process to determine what kinds of treatments could work and which experiments to follow next.

Across the world, governments and health authorities are now exploring distinct ways to contain the spread of Covid-19 as the virus has already dispersed across 196 countries in a short time. According to a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at George Washington University and SAS analytics manager for infectious diseases epidemiology and biostatistics, data, analytics, AI and other technology can play a significant role in helping identify, understand and assist in predicting disease spread and progression.

In its response to the virus, China, where the first case of coronavirus reported in late December 2019, started utilizing its sturdy tech sector. The country has specifically deployed AI, data science, and automation technology to track, monitor and defeat the pandemic. Also, tech players in China, such as Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, among others expedited their company's healthcare initiatives in their contribution to combat Covid-19.

Decoding the Virus with New-Age Technologies

In an effort to vanquish Covid-19, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), earlier this month, conducted a virtual COVID-19 and AI Conference, to discuss how best to approach the pandemic using technology, AI, and analytics.

Since late 2019, several groups have been monitoring the spread of the virus, as a Harvard pediatrics professor John Brownstein said. He says, it takes a small army of people and highlighting efforts by universities and other organizations to use data-mining and other tools to track early signs of the outbreak online, such as through China's WeChat app, and understand effects of the intervention.

AI Helps Diagnose the Virus

In the time of crisis, AI is proving its promising capabilities through diagnosing risks, doubt-clearing, delivering services and assisting in drug discovery to tackle the outbreak. AI-driven companies like Infervision brought an AI solution for coronavirus that assists front-line healthcare workers to spot and monitor the disease efficiently. Conversely, a start-up in the AI space CoRover that has earlier developed chatbots for railways ticketing platform, has built a video-bot, in collaboration with a doctor from Fortis Healthcare. Using the platform, a doctor can take questions from people about Covid-19.

Moreover, researchers in Australia have created and are testing a Covid-19 vaccine candidate to fight against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. Researchers from Flinders University, working with Oracle cloud technology and vaccine technology developed by Vaxine, assessed the Covid-19 virus and used this information to design the vaccine candidate. According to Professor Nikolai Petrovsky at Flinders University and Research Director at Vaxine, the vaccine has progressed into animal testing in the US and once they confirm it is safe and effective, then only it will be advanced into human trials.