STS Midterms: Coronavirus: How artificial intelligence, data science

and technology is used to fight the pandemic.

Data Science is used to develop AI used to fight the pandemic (mainly

from spreading and development of drugs)

Data Science – simulate the virus’ impact in a certain location/ quantify the effects and
provide estimation of possible measures to contain the virus or provide possible ways of
mitigation and preparation

- understand the behavior of the virus to come up with a medicine

- predict/ provide estimation as to when vaccines will be available

Machine learning – statistical tool to explore the date

AI – help develop vaccines, medicine, contact tracing

Drones – disinfection, delivery of goods

Mapping (john Hopkins whiting school of engineering

https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov/

supercomputers capable of running test in areas like epidemiology and molecular

modeling

avoid lengthy process of experimenting all possible outcomes

BlueDot quantifies the risk of exposure to infectious diseases globally, enabling you
to protect human health.

We detect outbreaks of over 150 different pathogens, toxins, and syndromes in near-
real time. Our platform scan over 100,000 official and mass media sources in 65
languages per day.
We anticipate dispersion of disease, locally and globally, using anonymous,
aggregated data on billions of flight itineraries and hundreds of millions of mobile
devices.

News, articles, posts (overview - intro)

- “on December 31, 2019, the WHO was informed of an outbreak of “pneumonia of unknown
cause” detected in Wuhan City, Hubei province, China.”

-“but how far and fast that’s going to happen and what we’re going to do about it is still in
question, could AI provide answers.”

-“if anything kills more than 10 millions people in next few decades, it’s most likely a highly
infectious virus, not war. We’ve invested a huge amount of nuclear deterrents, but we’ve
actually invested very little in a system to stop an epidemic.” – Bill Gates

- “In a global pandemic such as COVID-19, technology, artificial intelligence, and data science
have become critical to helping societies effectively deal with the outbreak”

-“ In response to this ongoing public health emergency, we developed”

“Where humans can easily get distracted,” he says, “we can have a machine continuously
keeping an eye on everything else that’s going on.”

A virus we didn’t even know existed until three months ago, change the world.

 AI to identify, track and forecast outbreaks

 visualize and track cases in real time, monitoring systems
 understand spread in real time, when and where
 predict trend and disease control, detecting, can alert but can’t yet investigate to say
what’s really occurring
 to understand how and why the virus is spreading through gathering data on the
timing and location of new cases, where new infections are coming from and how
 long before symptoms start to appear. these data go into models that can predict
how fast the infection fight spread. critical for creating containment plans and
assessing whether countermeasures are actually working. looking at patterns, mode
of transmissions can be inferred
 hotspots
 provide researchers, public health authorities, and the general public with a user-
friendly tool to track the outbreak

 provide initial understanding of the outbreak, make projections, understand

case fatalities.
 understanding the source of the virus through studying genetic analysis of
animal sample, to help prevent future outbreaks. understanding how the virus
spreads and functions.
 rapidly identify molecules that could form the basis of an effective treatment
against COVID 19, took 4 days to identify thousands of new molecules that
could be potentially used for cure. Or repurpose existing drugs.
 experimentation
 supercomputers working on vaccines
 develop drugs
 ROBOTS AND DRONES FOR LAW ENFORCING AND DISINFECTION
 INTERNET FOR FAST DELIVERY OF INFORMATION TO PUBLIC

 limitations: about the frontline workers and experts working with the data provided by
these machines, and come up with a response. ultimately it’s in the hands of the human
experts. detect and monitor
 AI cannot replace expert epidemiologist but it can serve as a tool in helping them
 identify, track, fight, prevent future
International, national, local scenarios (with pictures) - body

A. Erwan’s video
 It took nineteen days to go from 41 cases to more than 7,000 bringing us
to today, march 22 a total 306k cases, 13k deaths, 86k recoveries, 181
countries.
 We’re looking at at least 1 year of getting it under control
 Spread to areas where not well equipped
 mass testing to proceed contract tracing, identify every person that
potentially came in contact with someone who has the disease and testing
them as well to help their agencies identify hot spots where high
concentration had the virus and control those areas s best they could
B. Tens of thousands infected, the death tolls still rising, one of the world’s best
health systems at breaking point, country in lockdown

Opinion and realizations - closing

 stop spreading fake news, use reliable sources

 proper hygiene
 for food runs, strict social distancing
 privileged, help out where you can, it’s not easy for everyone
 we have the tools (biology, satellites, etc.) that should be in a global health system.
 we need preparedness, like how we prepare for war – reserves, mobile unit, logistics –
strong health systems in poor countries, medical reserve corps, pair them with military to
secure areas, simulations, R&D

Paper Outline
Introduction:
  Background of the virus – how it came to be, when it was discovered and
publicized – general background (poetic char)
 About Bluedot AI predicting the outbreak
 The spread of the virus – how it became a pandemic, the numbers (Erwan)
 The role of data science in the current affairs
- track the number of cases real time, visualize the spread, make
projections of the trend, predict further infections, monitor areas affected
and use this to prevent further spread, monitor hotspots
- provide models that can predict the speed of spreading and come up
with containment plans, assess whether current countermeasures are
effective,
- provide initial understanding of the outbreak, why the virus spreads, how
it spreads and how it functions, understanding the source of the virus
through genetic analysis
- rapidly identify molecules which could form the basis of an effective
treatment for the virus, simulations, experimentations, repurposing of
existing drugs to ultimately create a cure and vaccine
 other advance technologies

- drones – disinfection and delivery of goods

- other robots

- surveillance and tracking, convenient delivery of information

- availability of information to the general public and people in the medical

sector especially researchers, for them to be able to share findings and
hasten the discovery of vaccines.

Body: The numbers. The rise. The trend

How it became a pandemic. How AI is being used now.

Global numbers, mortality rate. General countermeasures.

 - issue: hoarding, going outside without masks
- CHINA: censorship, virus was already predicted by Bluedot

- ITALY: so many deaths

- USA: so many infected now, numbers growing exponentially

- INDIA: the picture clearly showing no social distancing

National numbers. countermeasures

- issue: no work no pay, not social distancing

Local numbers. countermeasures

- issue:

Conclusion:

‌- introduce flus, and how long it took tk eradicate them. with old technology it wiuld take
chuchuchu years. but with today's tech, ai, it is significantly reduced to. chuchu

‌- exprts say vaccines could be ready in chuchu months

‌- role of AI in combatting the epidemic