Fighting COVID-19 with the Help of Data

As we are witnessing the spread of COVID-19, we are also witnessing the spread of panic and reduction of the activities, blows to the economy of the whole world, as well as milliards of advises how to defend from it, which are interestingly all different, as well as the media predictions which are almost all saying that the end of the world is just around the corner, the proper way is to look at the actual data and understand the way the disease is spreading, how to identify the actual symptoms, how to map the people who were in contact with the infected and how to compare this with the capacity of the medical systems to battle the disease.

We have to leave the actual treatment to the doctors; however, the data analysis, modern technologies and smart city and e-government are now the best tools that the world can put against the coronavirus.

As we can already see from the data, people with several diagnosed conditions (48% of people with 3+ conditions diagnosed are at the highest risk), the determining of the infected people contacts trough mobile data mapping and implementation of social distancing measures are showing positive results.

Unfortunately, the data also shows that the measures taken in the healthcare industry in the past decades were wrong as the capacity of the healthcare systems declined in all areas, and therefore the COVID19, although less dangerous than SARS, MERS, smallpox is battering the existing healthcare capacities and the real way of dealing with it, especially in the west is trough the measures that are reducing the number of infected people to be able to adjust the number of cases to the  capacity of the healthcare systems.

Of course, the countries are defending and fighting against the COVID19 in different manners. Some are imposing quite heavy-handed measures, while others are trying to get to the herd immunity, as they are also worried about the impact on the overall life and economy.

As we can see the data analysis is already giving the valuable insights, and the measures introduced trough the e-government and smart city applications are helping the countries reduce the number of infected people or provide better treatments, aggregated mobility data is also used to determine the locations the disease is likely to spread, areas of priority to contain or limit further propagation, vulnerable communities as well as the new measures where the people are submitting their health data online and the algorithms are determining the possible locations of the disease spreading.

The world is facing a great danger, not only in the healthcare domain, but also in a lot of other domains as the countries are being challenged in multiple areas of human life, and the cost on the economy is yet to be determined. One can understand the difficulty yet awaiting humanity when even the accounting focused Germans have stated that they do not care about the balance sheets at the end of this crisis.

The data is and will be there to help us fight this danger off, as well as execute a speedy recovery if we just use it right.

Now it is the time to extensively use the data analysis to identify the risks, plan and adapt capacities of the healthcare system, distribute the required materials adequately, and also implement the measures of smart cities and e-government to ease the difficulties which the social distancing and other measures are imposing on the people and the systems, and of course use all of them in conjunction to recover from any stresses when the COVID19 is defeated, as it will inevitably be defeated. 

AZTech is offering online coaching and mentoring and are developing online course materials, to support leaders and managers during these difficult times. If you would like help, please get in contact.  You may call +971(4)4275400 or send email to [email protected].

---