Internet of Things for Managing Global Pandemics: Lessons from COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The Internet of Things, often known as IoT, is an innovative technology that connects digital devices all around us, allowing Machine to Machine (M2M) communication between digital devices all over the world, owing to the technological advancements in the 21 st century. Due to the convenience, connectivity, and affordability, this IoT is being served in various domains including healthcare where it brings exceptional benefits to improve patient care, uplifting medical resources to the next level. As of now, the IoT is served in various aspects of healthcare making many of the medical processes much easier as opposed to the earlier times. One of the most important aspects that this IoT can be used is, managing various aspects of healthcare during global pandemics, as pandemics can bring an immense strain on healthcare resources. As there is no proper study is done with regards to the proper use of IoT for managing pandemics, in this regard, through our study we aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of various use cases of IoT towards managing pandemics especially in terms of COVID-19 owing to what we are currently going through, along with key challenges and future directions. In this regard, we are proposing a contextual framework synthesizing the current literature and resources, which can be adopted when managing global pandemics like COVID-19 at the national and global levels.

The world is now experiencing a pneumonia outbreak caused by a novel coronavirus. The huge volume of medical literature on coronavirus has useful information that may assist medical research communities in addressing specific challenges. Health care professionals may improve their policies by quickly reviewing and getting specific data regarding coronavirus from various published research and the larger struggle against infectious disease. It has developed a technique for extracting actionable knowledge th

“…The common cold and the coronavirus both have mild symptoms. On the other side, COVID-19 may cause serious illness in certain people, particularly the elderly and those with serious underlying medical conditions [28] [17].…”

“…It is hoped that the suggested intelligent system would help healthcare staff uncover early the COVID-19 asymptomatic patient's "pull thinking," which is characterized by selective screening via more concentrated observations that lead to categorization, coding, and stratification [34]. Because of its ability to increase the chances of healthcare workers and public health officials to reduce or manage or control the potential hazards of asymptomatic patients, the suggested system has intelligence [17] [28] [35] as shown in figure ( 1).…”

“…Hospitals that use IoT to automate most of their tasks and various intelligent IoT devices, this can be used to provide community assistance, track patients and monitor their medical condition, and gather and analyze real-time data, which is crucial for reducing and controlling the majority of the negative consequences of pandemics, which can lead to an acceptable or a minimum level. [16] [17] [18] .…”

Temperature Monitoring Mechanism for Covid-19 Using WSN

“…As a result, HIPAA-compliant video conferencing equipment or wearable IoT gadgets are being used. [9].…”