DATA SCIENCE FOR HEALTH-TECH SOLUTIONS: RESPONSE TO COVID-19

Abstract

The rapid spread pattern of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID- 19) from human to human makes it a unique infectious disease. In the bid to combat this disease over the months, several data have been gathered about its spread in different locations all over the world, for contact tracing, identifying symptomatic and asymptomatic cases, current and future epidemiological spread prediction, evaluating effectiveness of containment measures among others. Furthermore, while treating infected patients, healthcare workers have also accumulated data on symptoms of patients, death cases, CT scans, PCR results, hospitalized patients, and other situations. These data provide a good basis for use by digital technologies to make worthwhile, quick, useful, and effective decisions now and after the pandemic. Digital technologies are being used to support the public-health response to COVID-19 worldwide for population surveillance, case identification, contact tracing, and evaluation of interventions based on mobility data and communication with the public. These rapid responses make use of billions of mobile phones, huge online datasets, connected devices, cheap computing resources, and advances in machine learning and natural language processing. In many countries, technologies with numerous applications have been developed. By improving on the existing facilities or creating new inventions, technologies allow the governments and health personnel to use intelligent approaches to overcome this pandemic. The future of public health is progressively more digital, and it is necessary for the alignment of international strategies for the regulation, evaluation, and use of digital techniques to strengthen pandemic management, and future-readiness for COVID-the integration of existing public healthcare systems. Therefore, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need for government, policymakers, and health organizations to accelerate the evaluation and adoption of digital technologies. 19 and other infectious diseases. Digital technologies cannot operate alone and this calls for