What Role Artificial Intelligence (AI) Plays in Fighting Against COVID-19

The Role Artificial Intelligence (AI) Plays in Fighting Against COVID-19
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Abstract
In times of crisis, individuals have to devise ways of handling issues. The COVID-19 pandemic has proved that the world can be brought to a sudden halt by a virus. Despite the interconnectedness the globe has experienced over the last decade, the virus has caused infections and deaths. The need to address the issue has elicited numerous approaches. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been proposed as a possible approach in fighting against COVID-19. The advancement in technology has enabled the use of AI to address complex problems. For instance, cars use AI to enhance their self-driving capabilities. AI has also been finding its way into the medical field, although on slow progress. Because of the need to find a solution to the COVID-19 pandemic, AI has been suggested as a viable option in addressing the virus. AI can be used to analyze big data, rapid drug development and treatment, minimize human contact, detect clusters of cases and predict virus trends, enhance diagnosis and monitoring, and prevent the spread of disinformation over the Internet. The use of AI in fighting against COVID-19 is vital as the world needs a viable solution.
Keywords
COVID-19, Artificial Intelligence (AI), diagnosis, mitigation, treatment, transmission, prevention, analysis, vaccine, drugs, data, infection, healthcare, and technology.
The Role Artificial Intelligence (AI) Plays in Fighting Against COVID-19
The pandemic as a result of COVID-19 remains the first public health crisis of the 21st century. It can be considered the first influenza pandemic to occur in the highly connected globe. Governments around the world have put in place measures to limit COVID-19 transmissions. Some countries have closed borders, with others instituting lockdowns. While these measures have minimized the spread of COVID-19, the number of confirmed cases and deaths keeps on increasing. Concerns have arisen on the capacity of the healthcare facilities to handle the increasing number of COVID-19 patients. Even in the developed world, the ability of healthcare centers to handle the surging number of cases has diminished. The need for speedy diagnosis, monitoring, and containment of the virus has led to new medical protocols. The pandemic has accelerated the development of new prototypes that are promising. One of the new approaches to dealing with the virus is artificial intelligence (AI). The adoption of AI in fighting COVID-19 is critical at such a time when the world is looking for ways of containing the pandemic.
AI can address the big data problem that the world faces as a result of COVID-19. New infection cases are increasing rapidly around the world. The number of deaths resulting from the virus is worrying. The increase in the number of COVID-19 cases has proved to be a critical source of information. Big data can store large amounts of data regarding COVID-19 patients. The data can be used to understand the nature of the virus and hence aid in developing containment measures (Haleem, Javaid, Khan & Vaishya, 2020). Travel history can be used in identifying individuals who may have been in contact with the infected patient. The data held can be utilized in the creation of future preventive measures. Big data can be used to project resource demands by ascertaining the number of people likely to be infected within a particular time. Public health efforts rely on the ability of healthcare professionals to predict how the disease spreads across the world. With modern computational power and AI application, researchers can incorporate multiple inputs to utilize the data available (Alsunaidi et al., 2021). The availability of data does not make it useful automatically. Data is useless if it lacks accurate results obtained from processing the huge data (Hussain, Bouachir, Al-Turjman & Aloqaily, 2020). The use of AI can improve the outcome by applying systems that gather thousands of actual patient information and analyze it with the help of experts.
AI technology can be used for rapid drug development and treatment. The COVID-19 has demonstrated the need for the rapid development of drugs (Jain, Sharma, Wang & Ram, 2021). The pandemic found the world unprepared for such an infectious disease. The development of a new drug is a lengthy process. The development is often costly and time-intensive (Chen et al., 2018). Even where resources are available, uncertainty exists whether the drug will successfully go through all the phases of development. Because of the complex and uncertain pathway of drug development, the need for identifying new ways of improving the rate of drug discovery keeps on emerging. The automation of the drug development process is critical in speeding the drug development process (Réda, Kaufmann & Delahaye-Duriez, 2020). The AI application can expedite the process and meet the high demand for COVID-19 vaccines and medication (Keshavarzi Arshadi et al., 2020). The failure to employ AI means that drug development for the virus would take a long time and consume more resources. Since the world is in a pandemic, AI would allow pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines and drugs within a shorter time, which are more affordable.
AI-assisted intelligent humanoid robots can be used to reduce the interpersonal contact and spread of COVID-19. Minimizing human contact is a requirement for reducing transmission rates (Cirrincione et al., 2020). However, individuals need to undertake essential tasks that support their daily lives. The design of robotic technologies that make use of AI can bridge this gap. For instance, contactless delivery is gaining acceptance. In particular, high-risk infection areas like hospitals require robotics to reduce the workload of healthcare professionals and minimize the spread of the virus (Khan, Siddique & Lee, 2020). The use of AI-enhanced robotic technologies would allow drugs, food, and samples for testing (Zhao et al., 2020). Where healthcare workers can continue offering services to COVID-19 patients without directly contacting them, the spread of the virus would reduce.
The technology plays an important role in detecting clusters of cases and predicting where the virus will affect the future by collecting and analyzing all previous data. AI can be used to analyze real-time data obtained from mobile phones to determine the travel history of individuals. The data obtained can assist in expound on the transmission of COVID-19 by travelers. Individuals identified as high-risk can be quarantined and tracked via their phones to ensure they comply with the required period (Grantz et al., 2020). AI can predict the likelihood of infections and the impact on the healthcare facilities in a given area. It can include data related to age, risk factors, occupation, and ethnicity. Using AI can then generate a risk index for a particular geog...