The cancer patients are more vulnerable and are at increased risk of COVID-19 and related outcomes due to their weakened immune systems, specially patients with lung cancer. Amid pandemic, the diagnosis, treatment, and care of cancer patients are very difficult and challenging due to several factors. In such situations, the latest technology in artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning algorithms (ML) have potential to provide better diagnosis, treatments and cares of cancer patients. For example, the researches may use clinical and imaging data with machine learning techniques to make differences between coronavirus-related lung changes and those caused by immunotherapy and radiotherapy. During this pandemic, AI can be used to ensure we are getting the right patients enrolled speedily and more efficiently than the traditional, and complex ways in the past in cancer clinical trials. This is the appropriate time to go beyond the “research as usual” approach and update our research via AI and ML tools to care the cancer patients and discover new and more effective treatments.

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The majority of the vegetables moving through traditional supply chains pass via Dambulla Dedicated Economic Centre (DDEC), which is the main wholesale market in Sri Lanka, to the regional markets. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sri Lankan government implemented several measures to keep vegetable markets of the country integrated. The objective of this study was to examine the degree of market integration of nine regional wholesale vegetable markets with DDEC in Sri Lanka during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pairwise comparisons between vegetable prices at DDEC and regional markets were done using Engle-Granger Co-integration test to achieve this objective. The analysis was carried out in the first differenced form, which conformed to the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) tests of stationarity. Short-run price disequilibrium was tested using Vector Auto-Regression Model (VAR) and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). Weekly wholesale prices of beans, carrot, tomato, and brinjal markets during 2018-2021 were used for the analysis. The results revealed that only bean markets in Dehiaththakandiya, Thambuttegama, Nuwara Eliya, Meegoda, and Colombo wholesale vegetable markets depicted cointegrated behaviour with DDEC during the COVID-19 period. None of the other vegetable markets were integrated spatially with DDEC during the COVID-19 period. Before the pandemic, except in Ampara, Colombo and Dehiaththakandiya regional markets, all the other regional markets for beans, carrot, tomato, and brinjal were spatially integrated with DDEC either long run or short run. In conclusion, despite various government interventions to keep the vegetable market channels smoothly and consistently, the COVID-19 has negatively affected on price transmission of the vegetable marketing system of the country.