How AI Is Helping in the Fight Against COVID-19

On Dec. 31, BlueDot, a Toronto-based company that uses artificial intelligence to track the spread of infectious diseases, alerted its customers about a cluster of unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China. Nine days later, the World Health Organization confirmed the discovery of a novel coronavirus, later named COVID-19, in Wuhan. Today, COVID-19 is a pandemic that has spread to 180 countries, claimed more than 83,000 lives, and triggered a near-global lockdown. And for the moment, the best solution to contain the spread of the virus is to improve personal hygiene and exercise social distancing. In the meantime, politicians, scientists, and researchers are teaming up to find systematic ways to fight the virus and care for patients.