The year 2020 us about to end and we have spent it on our houses completely isolated from the outside world. All this has become possible due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The way we live has changed immeasurably since the start of March when COVID-19 began spreading rapidly throughout us. Now, in mid-April, most folks are reception, using tools like Zoom, Teams, and Slack to remain in-tuned with colleagues. aside from groceries and prescriptions we’re buying almost everything online and having it shipped to our door. The importance of technology in our lives has never been more apparent.
Technological advantages of treatment in Covid-19.
Battling a pandemic as severe as COVID-19, demands immediate measures, tools that accelerate the delivery of treatment in a variety of settings that can easily diagnose cases of coronavirus. Digital tools such as telehealth, cloud computing, robots and AI-based chatbots are playing a key role in limiting the outbreak of COVID-19.
As China initiated its response to the virus, it leaned on its technological sector, artificial intelligence (AI), data science to track and fight the pandemic. Listed below are some of how. Here are some of the roles:
- Telemedicine offering online health consultation
- Smartphones apps to monitor a person's health.
- AI to identify and track in screening.
How technology has helped us?
While the technologies cannot replace or compensate the public issues, but they can play a very important role in this purpose.
all know how badly COVID-19 has impacted our lives, both personal and professional. During this time of sheer uncertainty and constant fear, our willingness to adopt technology has been our lifeline.
Let's have a look at how it's helping us:
- Distance learning- around 191 countries have either implemented or announced the closure of schools and universities, which has directly impacted close to 1.57 billion students. Most of the educational institutions have started to offer their courses online to make sure education is not disrupted due to the pandemic.
- Online entertainment- The lockdown has helped people in realising the ease of viewing content on OTT platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, Netflix, Zee5, Voot Select, it has changed how people are consuming content on a day-to-day basis. OTT platforms have witnessed a significant rise in both app downloads and viewership during the lockdown contactless track in applications.
- Stock Market- Contact tracing apps like Aarogya Setu have assisted in tracking the COVID-19 spread. Technology has also helped in educating people about the entire situation and reminding them to take the necessary precautions. Telecom operators such as BSNL, Jio, Airtel, etc. have used caller tunes for spreading awareness about the pandemic.
- Work from home- The work from home option has ensured business continuity for various companies and businesses. Internet, data privacy security, virtual meetings, cloud conferencing, etc. have assisted professionals in adapting themselves to work from the home scenario with ease.
- Contactless home delivery- The online grocery market witnessed tremendous growth during the pandemic due to the soaring demand amongst consumers. Families, particularly with children and older people, preferred to place their grocery orders online. This, in turn, resulted in a significant increase of new users who are resorting to online apps for grocery deliveries.
COVID-19 has proved that technology innovations have been helping in managing the epidemic in a timely, systematic, and calm manner.
A lesson learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic has been to stay prepared well in advance against any crisis at both an individual and collective level. All we need to fight an epidemic like COVID-19 is preparedness.
Ways in which technology helped in medical terms
Technology cannot prevent the onset of the pandemics; however, it can help prevent the spread, educate, warn, and empower those on the ground to be aware of the situation, and noticeably lessen the impact.
Here are some of the roles in which technology is being used to treat covid-19 in any manner.
- Finding drugs: When a new pandemic strikes, the first question on everybody’s mind is if there’s a drug to cure it or a vaccine to prevent it. AI is playing important role in suggesting components of a vaccine by understanding viral protein structures and helping medical researchers scour tens of heaps of relevant research papers at an unprecedented pace
- Fighting misinformation: Misinformation about the number of fatalities, diagnosis and treatment options, vaccines, medicines, government policies, etc., creates more panic and anxiety among the population. The result can be widespread chaos, panic buying, hoarding of essential commodities, price rise, violence on the streets, discrimination, conspiracy theories, and so
- Supercomputers working on a covid vaccine: Supercomputers are used in activities such as medication discovery, materials production to solve computational problems. For instance, the supercomputer of C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute (DTI) is planning on investing millions into grants to advance AI techniques for containing the spread of COVID-19.