How could artificial intelligence aid in the fight against coronavirus?

Abstract

Dr Hadi: Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the means or avenues to understand the virus and develop preventative and control measures. This includes but is not limited to: the usage of mathematical modeling to understand virus transmission, structural biology to determine virus structure and develop vaccines, computational biology to understand virus evolution, as well as docking studies to screen for drugs and inhibitors. Dr Zubair: AI has the potential to help in all the stages of healthcare, from syndromic surveillance through to rapid diagnosis tests, and faster drug development. AI-based systems are already being deployed to diagnose coronavirus infection in China. A system named ‘Coronavirus Chest CT Smart Evaluation System’ developed by YITU technologies for the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center (SPHCC) can now diagnose the suspected cases within seconds. AI may also help determine which patients should be prioritized for treatment. A population-wide mortality rate of 3% conceals the fact that young healthy people are much less likely to die than older people who may also have preexisting respiratory conditions. Machine learning methods can be trained to quickly learn which factors predict a higher risk of mortality, as well as the interventions and population-level controls, led to reduced harm. AI-based methods incorporating genetic, biological and environmental data could ultimately aid in the discovery of a cure for the coronavirus. 2. What is in-silico screening, andwhy is it particularly important in the case of the coronavirus outbreak?