COVID-19 : THE INNOVATION STRIKES BACK

COVID-19 represents an unprecedented global health crisis, challenging our entire socio-economic and health system. However, solutions are being developed in all four corners of the world to tackle this pandemic.

Indeed, there are many solutions, whether they are designed to attack it directly or to slow down the economic, social or financial repercussions faced by all sectors of activity.

Take the case of Seattle, where a young person was infected by COVID-19 at the end of February 2020, researchers were able to use an open science data-tracking platform to track the evolution of the virus and conclude it had spread throughout Seattle.

They were therefore able to share their data and work quickly on the analysis of this virus. All this data was uploaded to the Gisaid platform, allowing the exchange of scientific data, in particular genomic. It was then that Nextstrain researchers were able to make correlations with the young patient from Seattle. Nextrain is an open source platform that allows «Real-time tracking of pathogen evolution» such as COVID 19 or Ebola.

On the other side of the world, China Electronics Corporation has developed an application in collaboration with the Chinese government to enable users to detect people who have been exposed to coronavirus. The data is provided by the health authorities, giving citizens a transparent access to the data. However, this application represents psychological and societal risks. Indeed it can incite paranoia, discrimination, fear etc.

Technologies such as the blockchain are also the key to solving this crisis in a direct way:

1. The Public Health Blockchain Consortium (PHBC) has set up Covid 19 surveillance with their product VirusBlockchain…

It consists in automatically detecting risk areas in real time.

Earlier this month, they teamed up with Healthiest Luxury , a real estate company, to develop a Safe Zone certification program for all tourist accommodations such as hotels to prove that they are taking the best precautions to minimize the spreading of COVID 19 in their establishments.

Or indirectly…

2. Ant Duo Chain allows companies to apply for loans from banks. Thanks to blockchain it allows the acceleration of these long loan processes by reinforcing transparency and the access to the information. It has also been recognized by the UN as a company that helps to cope with the financial fallout of COVID-19.

Or the artificial intelligence used by the Canadian firm Bluedot , which allows the unification of two important variables in about ten languages:

The definition of these two variables allows an accurate simulation of the spread of diseases and an easier prediction of epidemics.

Innovation is a pillar in the management of this crisis and have a big challenge to deal with. It is both a short-term solution for the sanitary resolution of COVID-19 and an alternative to the collapse of our socio-economic system. To be continued…