IoT and AI Technological Empowered Covid-19 Control Approaches

The Covid-19 virus has continued to mutate with some variants proving more aggressive and more transmissible. Clearly, this calls for continued efforts to strengthen public health systems preparedness and readiness to respond to both current and future pandemics. Technological innovations have played pivotal roles in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, in Sub-saharan Africa there has been lack of rapid adoption and deployment of indigenous technological innovations. This work presents three internet of things and artificial intelligence powered technological innovations that can be deployed to strengthen the public health system readiness to fight the Covid-19 pandemic and other similar pandemics. Specifically, these include, (i) a social distance violation checker, which can be deployed to protect front desk employees; (ii) a portable vital signs screening and monitoring kit, suitable for use in both crowded environments and in private homes; and (iii) an Artificial Intelligence integrated smart camera system for checking unfitted mask wearing. These innovations can help to enforce public adherence to social distance guides, mask wearing and also timely detection and isolation of potential cases, all of which are important strategies in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. These innovations have been tested and their performance is comparable to existing commercial solutions.