On the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak and the Smart City Network: Universal Data Sharing Standards Coupled with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Benefit Urban Health Monitoring and Management

Abstract

As the Coronavirus (COVID-19) expands its impact from China, expanding its catchment into surrounding regions and other countries, increased national and international measures are being taken to contain the outbreak. The placing of entire cities in 'lockdown' directly affects urban economies on a multi-lateral level, including from social and economic standpoints. This is being emphasised as the outbreak gains ground in other countries, leading towards a global health emergency, and as global collaboration is sought in numerous quarters. However, while effective protocols in regard to the sharing of health data is emphasised, urban data, on the other hand, specifically relating to urban health and safe city concepts, is still viewed from a nationalist perspective as solely benefiting a nation's economy and its economic and political influence. This perspective paper, written one month after detection and during the outbreak, surveys the virus outbreak from an urban standpoint and advances how smart city networks should work towards enhancing standardization protocols for increased data sharing in the event of outbreaks or disasters, leading to better global understanding and management of the same.Healthcare 2020, 8, 46 7 of 9 ConclusionsAs the world increases in its ready adoption of the smart city concept, and its related technological tools, these tools need to be tailored to ensure that liveability dimensions are adequately catered for, including the thematic of urban health. On this front, it is argued that the lack of standardization between smart city technology suppliers can lead and is leading to noncommunication between cities and data platforms. Such can, and is, resulting in a non-productive system in the case of virus outbreaks because early detection and management of the same can become increasingly dependent upon the technological backbone of smart cities. This paper thus highlights the urgent need to work towards the standardization of protocols for enhanced smart city communication and the need to democratize the smart city technology sphere to encourage equity and transparency amongst stakeholders, thereby providing more possible cooperation in the case of disasters.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Provided Early Detection of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in China and Will Influence Future Urban Health Policy Internationally

“…In addition, the handling of these types of data attract fears of security breach risks and ethical and moral challenges associated with data storage and mis-/use [38]; especially that data relating to personal genomes [39]. Allam and Jones [40] further support how this can be theoretically achieved across networks at an urban, regional and international scale.…”

“…However, to ensure that de-identification (anonymisation) of data is truly achieved, there is a need for standardisation of datasets and protocols to allow for the rich array of devices to be able to be communicated with each other and across systems. While discussion on this may be lengthy, following issues like proprietary pursuit by some device manufacturers, and the forfeiture of profits by the corporations that may benefit from the handling of such data, the potential that the processing of the data from unrestricted dataset is limitless [40]. This, as Ellahham et al [44] hold, would greatly benefit the health sector in scaling issues like diagnosis, personalised medication and the discovery of cures for ailments that bedevils the global population.…”

How Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Can Help Better Manage the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…AI and Big Data can provide local decision-and policy-makers with informed, evidence-based predictions. Allam and Jones [29] have investigated the COVID-19 outbreak adopting an urban standpoint, showing how smart cities and smart networks can exploit high-quality, enhanced standardized protocols for data sharing during emergencies, to better manage such situations.…”

Artificial intelligence to codify lung CT in Covid-19 patients

“…1, 2). On the basis of the scientific evidence acquired so far, it is also intended to underline that, considering the nonspecificity of HRCT patterns of Covid-19 pneumonia that do not allow to express a diagnostic judgment of certainty, the chest HRCT examination cannot be considered a substitute for the RT-PCR test in the diagnosis of Covid-19 nor used as a means of clinical screening, but it represents a good support [15].…”