Digital technology and COVID-19 - Nature Medicine

First, the IoT provides a platform that allows public-health agencies access to data for monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the'Worldometer' provides a real-time update on the actual number of people known to have COVID-19 worldwide, including daily new cases of the disease, disease distribution by countries and severity of disease (recovered, critical condition or death) (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/). Second, big data also provides opportunities for performing modeling studies of viral activity and for guiding individual country healthcare policymakers to enhance preparation for the outbreak. Using three global databases―the Official Aviation Guide, the location-based services of the Tencent (Shenzhen, China), and the Wuhan Municipal Transportation Management Bureau―Wu et al. performed a modeled study of'nowcasting' and forecasting COVID-19 disease activity within and outside China that could be used by the health authorities for public-health planning and control worldwide8. Similarly, using the WHO International Health Regulations, the State Parties Self-Assessment Annual Reporting Tool, Joint External Evaluation reports and the Infectious Disease Vulnerability Index, Gilbert et al. assessed the preparedness and vulnerability of African countries in battling against COVID-19; this would help raise awareness of the respective health authorities in Africa to better prepare for the viral outbreak9.