Around 6 months since the first case of Coronavirus (COVID-19) was reported in China, the virus has spread to 210 countries and territories around the world. The number of confirmed cases are reported to be around 2,083,304 at the time of writing this blog.

While scientists and researchers around the world are studying the novel coronavirus to find a cure, technology has put up a parallel crusade to fight this crisis on various fronts. From dataset-management to make scientists’ work easier to building apps for public safety, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and data science are proving to be invaluable soldiers in the battle against this pandemic.

The Silence Before The Storm

Back in late-2019 when novel coronavirus was being thought of (or even dismissed) as a ‘Chinese thing’, Toronto-based AI start-up BlueDot had sounded the warning bell of a possible massive global outbreak.

On December 30, 2019, had issued an alert about a cluster of “unusual pneumonia” cases happening around a market in Wuhan, China. BlueDot’s AI engine collects data on over 150 diseases and syndromes around the world from sources such as the Center for Disease Control or the World Health Organization. Additionally, the BlueDot engine also searches for news reports and airline ticketing data from around the world. This information is updated every 15 minutes.

Using the massive data at its disposal, the BlueDot AI engine is capable of prognosticating an outbreak and spread of infections. Using air travel data, the system accurately predicted that novel coronavirus would spread to Bangkok, Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo after its outbreak in Wuhan in China’s Hubei province.

BlueDot uses a mix of natural language processing, disease surveillance and analysis, machine learning to scour and sift data and human analysis to create its prediction reports.

Testing The Waters

Even in the very early stages, when the Chinese government was struggling to contain the outbreak, Chinese tech companies including tech giants like Alibaba, Baidu and Huawei, were amping-up their healthcare tech initiatives.

Around February-March, Alibaba developed an AI system that could diagnose coronavirus in patients’ chest CT scans with 96% accuracy. As opposed to manual testing which takes around 15 minutes, this system could do it within 20 seconds. Using ML (Machine Learning) technology on images and data from 5,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, Alibaba’s AI has reduced the workload on medical practitioners across China who have been overwhelmed with patient-surge since December.

Similarly, Terra Drone, a Japanese company, ensured that medical and other supplies were safely transported from Xinchang County’s disease control centre to Xinchang County People’s Hospital without any human involvement, to avoid the spread of infection. Terra Drone’s KazUAV drones are also helping the police monitor Kazakhastan’s capital Nur-Sultan for violations of lockdown policies.

The Inside Story

While lockdowns and social distancing can help in containing the outbreak, it may not be enough to stop the spread completely. Unless and until scientists and researchers find a vaccine for the virus, a repeat of this pandemic cannot be ruled out, even if the curve is flattened.

AI could be enormously helpful for vaccine discovery. Scientists have been working on proteins (known as amino acids) since the 1950s. The enormous databases of proteins available must be scoured through and studied to understand the protein behind the virus. Screening through millions of chemical compounds via an AI system would be a lot more fast and reliable compared to human efforts. Understanding the three-dimensional shape of the proteins in COVID-19 could be key to finding vaccines against it.

On these lines, Google’s DeepMind division has developed AlphaFold, a deep-learning system, focussing on predicting protein structure for COVID-19.

The Larger Picture

In March, The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Allen Institute for AI (AI2), Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Microsoft Research, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, and the National Library of Medicine at National Institutes of Health teamed up to create CORD-19 (COVID-19 Open Research Dataset). CORD-19 has brought nearly 51,000 research papers about COVID-19 under a single umbrella. These papers would be accessible to AI researchers who can use it to create ML models that can help scientists find the information they need.

In our previous blog, we discussed how the Indian government’s app AarogyaSetu alerts a user if they have crossed paths or come in contact with an infected person. The app also comes with a tool for self-testing questionnaire and self-isolation advice.

It is a little ironic that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning which until last year were associated with security concerns and loss of jobs are now at the forefront of one of the most important battles being fought in modern times. The battle is not over yet, and AI, ML and big data will continue to play an important part in making the victory over this virus a fast and permanent one.

In the 15 days since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the Coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, 471,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported globally.

The pandemic and consequent measures to stop its spread have taken a serious toll on the global economy. The cancellation of many big events, shutting down of commercial establishments, limitations on use of public transport, and employees having to work from home have crippled many industries. The tech industry, too, is seeing its share of ups and downs in these testing times.

The big five of tech – Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft have collectively lost over a trillion dollars in a month. Since the outbreak originated in China, iPhone supply issues have hit Apple hard right since the beginning of the year. Apple has also shuttered all its stores outside Greater China until the end of March. As many countries are forcing its people to lockdown, Amazon’s eCommerce business has come to a standstill. Businesses like Google and Facebook, which rely on ad revenues are usually the worst hit during slow times such as these.

Companies centred around the gig economy such as Uber, Ola, Zomato, and Airbnb too are struggling to get customers. Uber, especially, is hit hard as it has seen its stock plunge by 64% between mid-February and mid-March.

It is not an entirely grim situation though. Many experts believe that several tech companies are bound to come out looking better at the end of it all. The ones who will benefit the most from this situation are companies offering video conferencing and collaboration tools. While e-commerce services had almost come to a standstill for a while, some of them are resuming service at least for the essentials.

Zoom Video Communications has seen its stock surge 101% since January 31st. As an increasing number of companies started asking their employees to work from home, Zoom suddenly came into focus as an indispensable tool. The video conferencing and cloud meeting app is widely being used, not just by companies, but by educational institutes as well to hold classes and webinars. Similarly, Slack, Teams by Microsoft and RingCentral too have seen a spike in its users. RingCentral, especially, has picked a rapid userbase in China.

Many countries have put their populations in an obligatory lockdown to curb the spread of the virus. Unsurprisingly, Netflix, YouTube, and a slew of other similar media streaming sites across the world are seeing a spike in usage.

Certain experts also believe that most of the companies who’ve seen some losses in the midst of the pandemic will emerge stronger by the end of it. Google’s losses in ad revenue, for example, are balanced by its cloud computing revenues, which are in unprecedented demand. The same goes for Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud computing services. Apple, which used to rely heavily on device sales until a couple of years ago, has diversified into services such as Apple TV and iCloud off late. If the data is any indicator, people are watching more TV while quarantined at home, than ever before, and that must be good news for Apple in the long run.

Outside the direct effect of the COVID-19 outbreak, this episode holds the potential to create a more permanent behavior change in the way people shop and consume media. Consider online shopping in India, for example. Although online shopping for books and tech accessories was always popular with a section of internet users, online grocery shopping was still in its nascent stages. With the country in complete lockdown except for essential supplies, the demand for online grocery and medicine delivery portals saw a sudden rise. Google searches for ‘online grocery delivery’ saw a 60% rise in March 2020 in India.

The tech industry is not isolated in this time of crisis. The impact on other domains such as finance, travel, and logistic and supplies, which are directly or indirectly intertwined with the tech industry will affect tech companies by varying degrees. The outbreak and its fallout have taught us to be more self-connected, and aware and concerned about the diversity around us.

As the world will return to normalcy in the coming months, it will have converted some offline shoppers into online shoppers, some club-goers to Netflix bingers, and some on-premise employees to remote workers. As of now, the Covid-19 pandemic has put the tech industry through tumultuous times. And it will be a while until a clearer picture emerges, but as humans we will be a little more evolved and a little more learned after this incident. As individual, as well as organizational attitudes, change, some companies will come out looking better than ever before. And that will be the Future of Work, the Future of Human Race.