No Arabic abstract
COVID-19 has resulted in a worldwide pandemic, leading to lockdown policies and social distancing. The pandemic has profoundly changed the world. Traditional methods for observing these historical events are difficult because sending reporters to areas with many infected people can put the reporters lives in danger. New technologies are needed for safely observing responses to these policies. This paper reports using thousands of network cameras deployed worldwide for the purpose of witnessing activities in response to the policies. The network cameras can continuously provide real-time visual data (image and video) without human efforts. Thus, network cameras can be utilized to observe activities without risking the lives of reporters. This paper describes a project that uses network cameras to observe responses to governments policies during the COVID-19 pandemic (March to April in 2020). The project discovers over 30,000 network cameras deployed in 110 countries. A set of computer tools are created to collect visual data from network cameras continuously during the pandemic. This paper describes the methods to discover network cameras on the Internet, the methods to collect and manage data, and preliminary results of data analysis. This project can be the foundation for observing the possible second wave in fall 2020. The data may be used for post-pandemic analysis by sociologists, public health experts, and meteorologists.
Disruptions resulting from an epidemic might often appear to amount to chaos but, in reality, can be understood in a systematic way through the lens of epidemic psychology. According to Philip Strong, the founder of the sociological study of epidemic infectious diseases, not only is an epidemic biological; there is also the potential for three psycho-social epidemics: of fear, moralization, and action. This work empirically tests Strongs model at scale by studying the use of language of 122M tweets related to the COVID-19 pandemic posted in the U.S. during the whole year of 2020. On Twitter, we identified three distinct phases. Each of them is characterized by different regimes of the three psycho-social epidemics. In the refusal phase, users refused to accept reality despite the increasing number of deaths in other countries. In the anger phase (started after the announcement of the first death in the country), users fear translated into anger about the looming feeling that things were about to change. Finally, in the acceptance phase, which began after the authorities imposed physical-distancing measures, users settled into a new normal for their daily activities. Overall, refusal of accepting reality gradually died off as the year went on, while acceptance increasingly took hold. During 2020, as cases surged in waves, so did anger, re-emerging cyclically at each wave. Our real-time operationalization of Strongs model is designed in a way that makes it possible to embed epidemic psychology into real-time models (e.g., epidemiological and mobility models).
The UK government announced its first wave of lockdown easing on 10 May 2020, two months after the non-pharmaceutical measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 were first introduced on 23 March 2020. Analysis of reported case rate data from Public Health England and aggregated and anonymised crowd level mobility data shows variability across local authorities in the UK. A locality-based approach to lockdown easing is needed, enabling local public health and associated health and social care services to rapidly respond to emerging hotspots of infection. National level data will hide an increasing heterogeneity of COVID-19 infections and mobility, and new ways of real-time data presentation to the public are required. Data sources (including mobile) allow for faster visualisation than more traditional data sources, and are part of a wider trend towards near real-time analysis of outbreaks needed for timely, targeted local public health interventions. Real time data visualisation may give early warnings of unusual levels of activity which warrant further investigation by local public health authorities.
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed mobile health applications and telemedicine from nice to have tools into essential healthcare infrastructure. This need is particularly great for the elderly who, due to their greater risk for infection, may avoid medical facilities or be required to self-isolate. These are also the very groups at highest risk for cognitive decline. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic artificially intelligent conversational agents were employed by hospitals and government agencies (such as the CDC) to field queries from patients about symptoms and treatments. Digital health tools also proved invaluable to provide neuropsychiatric and psychological self-help to people isolated at home or in retirement centers and nursing homes.
What makes cyber risks arising from connected systems challenging during the management of a pandemic? Assuming that a variety of cyber-physical systems are already operational-collecting, analyzing, and acting on data autonomously-what risks might arise in their application to pandemic management? We already have these systems operational, collecting, and analyzing data autonomously, so how would a pandemic monitoring app be different or riskier? In this review article, we discuss the digitalization of COVID-19 pandemic management and cyber risk from connected systems.
The ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic is affecting every facet of human lives (e.g., public health, education, economy, transportation, and the environment). This novel pandemic and citywide implemented lockdown measures are affecting virus transmission, peoples travel patterns, and air quality. Many studies have been conducted to predict the COVID-19 diffusion, assess the impacts of the pandemic on human mobility and air quality, and assess the impacts of lockdown measures on viral spread with a range of Machine Learning (ML) techniques. This review study aims to analyze results from past research to understand the interactions among the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown measures, human mobility, and air quality. The critical review of prior studies indicates that urban form, peoples socioeconomic and physical conditions, social cohesion, and social distancing measures significantly affect human mobility and COVID-19 transmission. during the COVID-19 pandemic, many people are inclined to use private transportation for necessary travel purposes to mitigate coronavirus-related health problems. This review study also noticed that COVID-19 related lockdown measures significantly improve air quality by reducing the concentration of air pollutants, which in turn improves the COVID-19 situation by reducing respiratory-related sickness and deaths of people. It is argued that ML is a powerful, effective, and robust analytic paradigm to handle complex and wicked problems such as a global pandemic. This study also discusses policy implications, which will be helpful for policymakers to take prompt actions to moderate the severity of the pandemic and improve urban environments by adopting data-driven analytic methods.