Bringing 'smart' into cities to fight pandemics: With the reference to the COVID-19

Abstract

The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has affected the lives of 5,698,246 people globally. Originating in China, the virus progressed rapidly to other countries. The COVID-19 outbreak has mostly affected cities and seriously threatened citizens' health, the economy, and the infrastructures of the urban territories. Several states were relatively quick to deploy smart technology solutions to respond to the emergence of COVID-19. Existing and new digital technologies are proposed to supplement the traditional measures within the response to the first pandemic of the decade. The term smart technologies imply the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence. The focus of this paper was to propose smart technologies as a part of the solution toward reducing the spread of pandemics in urbanized areas. One of the aims was to find positive examples of the smart city implementation during the pandemics and show its usefulness in facing it. The possibility of using real-time data, thus conducting real-time action is their main advantage and that is why more cities should use this smart concept to respond to the global crises.