Role of Computational Intelligence Against COVID-19

Abstract

The recent COVID-19 pandemic caused due to the notorious SARS-CoV-2 virus has caused widespread loss of human lives across the globe. It has affected more than 213 countries, with a count of 11,669,259 cases and 539,906 deaths, as per WHO report on 9 July 2020. The epidemic has brought the world to a halt and has pointed out the shortcomings of the healthcare system and the flaws in epidemic management. The traditional ways of healthcare management have collapsed under these exigent circumstances. In these trying times, there is a dire need for better implementation of available resources and technology to accelerate the management of the pandemic. Hence, a systematic and thorough assessment of available technology, resources, tools, and techniques will point us in the right direction for finding potential solutions for the control of the severity or spread of the disease and ultimately finding a cure. The use of the advanced field of computational intelligence, which includes Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Big Data analytics, for clinical/healthcare data can serve substantial solutions in the current scenarios. This chapter aims to discuss the role of AI, ML, as well as Big Data analytics, in healthcare and epidemic management. The chapter elaborates on various applications of computational intelligence in speed tracking of spread, identifying patients with critically low immunity/high-risk patients, assistance in treatment and diagnosis, controlling the spread, and future predictions using the current dataset. The chapter addresses a significant application of Computational intelligence in the research area of drug discovery and repurposing in the hunt for a cure. It briefly discusses technologies like Blockchain and AI-empowered image acquisition that have proved their significance in diagnosis and treatment in various countries, globally. The chapter proposes short-term action plans for combating the virus using computational intelligence while outlining future strategies of applying CI in healthcare management and its long-term benefits.