The world is fighting from a very disastrous pandemic COVID-19, caused by the coronavirus and Data science is acting as Vibhishana in this fight.

Data is acting as an ever-more-critical battlefield asset in these times where we are at war with this pandemic and not surprisingly, Data Science is playing a very crucial role in it.

Nations worldwide are installing various types of equipment for fighting COVID-19. These equipment incorporate Artificial Intelligence tools, Data Science and Analytics, Machine Learning, thermal sensors, and other technologies.

Now coming to Actual Contributions of DS against COVID-19:-

i) Warning Bell:- The case of the Canadian-based AI model, BlueDot, has already become legendary. It’s an AI tool that can out-predict humans in spotting infectious disease outbreaks. According to accounts, BlueDot predicted the outbreak of the infection at the end of 2019, issuing a warning to its clients on 31 December 2019, before the World Health Organization did on 9 January 2020. Researchers working with BlueDot also published a notice in the Journal of Travel Medicine on 14 January 2020, where it listed the top 20 destination cities where passengers from Wuhan would arrive. It warned that these cities could be at the forefront of the global spread of the disease.

ii) Spread Analysis and Control:- AI can be used to track and to predict how the COVID-19 disease will spread over time and over space. There are already a few existing models for such purposes that are being retrained on the COVID-19 dataset.

iii) Data Dashboards:- There are many dashboards that show COVID cases all over the world and one of the most used sites is - https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/  which uses data visualization and analytics.

COVID Details as of 10th April 2020 -

iv) Virus and Drugs research:- To find an antidote for the coronavirus, we first need to understand the behavior of the virus. For this, AI is helping us process millions of test cases on the virus in less time as compared to the time taken by manual processing. It can detect the disease and its extent of consequences. Currently, for fighting COVID-19 using Data Science, AI, and Machine Learning, scientists and health researchers are working day and night.

Through millions of tests conducted with the help of AI-enabled tools, researchers can prove the effectiveness of a drug, and its consequences as well. If it is processed by humans, then it would take more than 10 years and would involve billions of dollars, which would be fatal in the current scenario. Artificial Intelligence helps in processing the large volume of drug data through numerous test cases in a short span of time.

v) Automated Services:- Automated bots are being used as staff to avoid contact and reducing pressure on doctors and other medical staff. Since there are a limited number of medical resources, machines equipped with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning can aid doctors to detect the disease quickly and accurately and observe the patients with more care. For fighting COVID-19 using Artificial Intelligence effectively, countries are automating their medical processes by employing machines equipped with AI in all entry and exit points.

India is also equipping its hospitals with bots like(SONA 2.5) in SMS hospitals of Jaipur and keeping an eye on lockdown with drones in Asia's biggest slums like Dharavi.

vi) Predicting survival rate:- For handling such a critical situation, where millions of people are affected, China has created an AI tool that helps predict the survival rate of patients. This AI tool also helps in deciding the medication to be given to the patient. Besides, it helps doctors make better clinical decisions for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. Also, scientists have built the Machine Learning systems to predict the disease of the patients. In this way, along with Artificial Intelligence, the world is fighting COVID-19 with Machine Learning. There are a huge number of cases to be taken care of, to filter best survival, which gives an edge to doctors to adjust according to the ongoing scenario.

Like in Italy and Spain there are old people who are sacrificing their life for younger ones.

So overall now, the governments have started collecting the information of citizens such as their travel history and medical records. This has resulted in the collection of huge data of citizens. Countries have already started processing this data with the help of Big Data tools. The processing of the data of billions of citizens involves removing redundancy, scaling the data, and structuring it for further use. This is only possible with the help of various essential tools of Big Data.

After the collection and processing of such huge data, the government authorities analyze and visualize it. Here, by analyzing the data and visualizing the trends in it, Data Science helps the governments make estimates about the scope of further spread of the disease, the available medical infrastructure to admit affected patients, and the budget required for all of this. With the help of these estimations, Data Science is helping the governments make arrangements for medical facilities and capital to spend on their citizens. This is helping a lot in fighting COVID-19 using Data Science.

This is how the world is handling the global medical emergency and fighting coronavirus with Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Big Data. However, the efforts of the governments and the health organizations are still on the go as it is hard to fight the coronavirus.

Therefore, to sum up, I would say you always need a weapon like Brahmastra in your arsenal to stand in line in the current world full of pandemics and war. Brahmastra isn’t easy to obtain but once you have it, you can prove to be extremely powerful. The same goes for Data Science and AI.

Also, just for your knowledge-

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