How smart cities can mitigate the impact of health crises -- GCN

Smart city technologies can help detect and mitigate public health crises, as evidenced by the current COVID-19 pandemic, new research shows. With data emerging as the star as governments at all levels work together to slow the virus' spread, smart cities can facilitate collaboration and response, according to "COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review of Smart Cities Initiatives to Face New Outbreaks," a June 2020 paper published in the IET Smart Cities Journal. That's because "cities can be perceived as living organisms," the paper states. "Terabytes of data can be daily provided from different sources, such as lamp posts, buses, climatic stations, police vehicles, traffic lights, security cameras, automatized hospitals, universities, museums, and any other'element' that can be connected to a digital city's macrocosm." Some technologies -- such as cameras that can screen passengers at international airports for fevers -- can be used to fight COVID-19 now and detect, alert and mitigate other health crises in the future.