A critical review of emerging technologies for tackling COVID ‐19 pandemic

Abstract

COVID‐19 pandemic affects people in various ways and continues to spread globally. Researches are ongoing to develop vaccines and traditional methods of Medicine and Biology have been applied in diagnosis and treatment. Though there are success stories of recovered cases as of November 10, 2020, there are no approved treatments and vaccines for COVID‐19. As the pandemic continues to spread, current measures rely on prevention, surveillance, and containment. In light of this, emerging technologies for tackling COVID‐19 become inevitable. Emerging technologies including geospatial technology, artificial intelligence (AI), big data, telemedicine, blockchain, 5G technology, smart applications, Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), robotics, and additive manufacturing are substantially important for COVID‐19 detecting, monitoring, diagnosing, screening, surveillance, mapping, tracking, and creating awareness. Therefore, this study aimed at providing a comprehensive review of these technologies for tackling COVID‐19 with emphasis on the features, challenges, and country of domiciliation. Our results show that performance of the emerging technologies is not yet stable due to nonavailability of enough COVID‐19 dataset, inconsistency in some of the dataset available, nonaggregation of the dataset due to contrasting data format, missing data, and noise. Moreover, the security and privacy of people's health information is not totally guaranteed. Thus, further research is required to strengthen the current technologies and there is a strong need for the emergence of a robust computationally intelligent model for early differential diagnosis of COVID‐19.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Hybrid harmony search algorithm for social network contact tracing of COVID-19

“…The propagation of COVID-19 is very fast, and the disease is severe, fatal, and hard to control or track without innovative tracking methods that are too fast. Living in a connected world in which computer networks, mobile devices, social networks, and artificial intelligence applications are indispensable, paved the way for technology to play a pivotal role in combating COVID-19 (Mbunge et al 2021 ).…”

Framework for ethical and acceptable use of social distancing tools and smart devices during COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe

“…Since the outbreak of the pandemic, several emerging technologies such as AI, Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain, big data, cloud computing, geographical information systems (GIS), virtual reality, robotics, 5G technology and IoMT have been implemented to tackle the pandemic [10] . Globally, researchers, scientists and technologists have been applying artificial intelligence techniques such as deep learning (DL) and machine learning models to screen suspected cases, identify and detect COVID-19, and diagnoses of patients [17] as well as vaccines development[8] and prediction of cases and mortality [18] . For instance, [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] conducted reviews on the application of artificial intelligence models for detecting, identification and modelling COVID-19 using chest computed tomography (CT) or X-ray images.…”

“…This poses interoperability, standardization and synchronization challenges when using a different brand. Also, these social distancing apps and contact tracing face implementation challenges such as privacy protection issues, security challenges, scalability, internet access, limited connectivity, legal and regulatory issues as well as ethical issues [17] . Even though some proximity apps have been used in market analysis, workplace, retail locations, transit stations, grocery stores, parks, and residences pre-COVID-19 their usage was much on a smaller scale and for different purposes such as in-store tracking and improving services delivery [51] .…”

Beyond the Pandemic: COVID-19 Pandemic Changed the Face of Life

“…Additionally, open-access journals could be freely accessed, which allows for much progress to be made in regard to scientific trials and helps expand some research areas. During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers followed alternative strategies including those listed below: Preparing and writing grants, review articles, and paper submissions [ 3 , 92 , 93 ]; Administering online questionnaires [ 94 , 95 ]; Carrying out meta-analyses of relevant literature and research in the field [ 96 ]. …”