Can Tech Help With This Pandemic?

As time moves on, the coronavirus issue continues to escalate and spread into the wider world. The WHO have announced a global pandemic and countries (Italy) are seeing further lockdown. I am not writing to fearmonger but I would like to revisit technology and crisis. Governments are already calling on tech firms to help and I have covered China’s implementation recently. Aside from privacy and rights concerns, technology could definitely be utilised to make life better in the event of a lockdown.

Many events are being cancelled this year, for good reason. It remains to be seen if open air events will be cancelled and I will be paying close attention to the Olympics, Euros and various sporting events that are due to run throughout the year. The Electronics Entertain Expo (E3), Mobile launch events and so much more are either getting canned or being streamed. It might start to feel like an episode of Black Mirror where the world has become a dangerous place and we must use technology to replace social outings and events.

Governments are urging events to be cancelled but it is a wonder that they hold regular congregation and lead without example. If tech firms are to step in, it will be interesting as to how it will be used to provide assistance in a state of pandemic. Will drones and robots come to our aid, delivering goods and cleansing simultaneously. Can big data, AI and deep learning be used to predict virus spread and perhaps even accurately trace its origins based on user data? It’s no secret that much of the population is feeding into Google’s data bank among others, whether these tech companies will try to step up remains to be seen.

In times of panic and fear, a little more transparency is needed. The world is pointing fingers at inconsistent data but I applaud all those in dealing with the virus. Accepting there is a problem and preparing for impact is an approach I have seen a few countries take with great success, and this might be instilled by previous outbreaks such as SARS. We shouldn’t face this problem with fear, running for toilet paper. I would like to see technology step up and help with alleviating these situations in every possible capacity.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
https://www.gamesradar.com/e3-2020-cancelled/
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/11/white-house-cto-kratsios-tech-facebook-google-meeting/

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