Corona Virus — Can IoT help?
With the current global concerns regarding the Corona Virus, one could not help think about how can IoT help in this situation. Some times dire situations can provide a platter of unexplored opportunities!!
IoT — the helping hand of God
The core strength of IoT is being able to communicate in real-time about situations it is designed to detect. Which is exactly what we would want to in such an epidemic situation like Corona Virus.
It could be a simple thing like detecting an environment which can be very conducive to such virus thriving. It has been found that the current threatening strain — the Novel Corona Virus thrives in lower temperatures and low humidity environments. Thus if in a public place the environmental conditions are monitored by IoT sensors like a solution like mentioned in this article How IoT Works with some real-life examples. The IoT sensors/solutions could be programmed to detect such danger zones within work environments and would be able to trigger out either alarm or auto-change the air conditioning parameters.
Environmental control is as important as isolation to prevent the spread. Thus implementing this is public places helps prevent spreading by touch objects used by others. In the case of Novel Corona Virus, its current strain may not be in a position to sustain on surfaces but tomorrow this can change. Also, the case of environmental control and danger zone detections for different types of microorganisms can be extended to other viruses and bacteria.
Simple to implement
Having said this, let me also assure you that this is one of the simplest systems to implement. All we need IoT sensors that need to be placed at locations and places that are more prone to public transit thereby leading to a spread. These then need gateways to talk to the cloud infrastructure. The cloud infrastructure based on the type of implementation and rules implemented will send the signals/alarms to take the needed action which can vary from a simple notification to activation of the automatic controller to adjust the climate around.
Tomorrow’s IoT
I am not sure if there are any Bio-IoT sensors available for the detection of Pathogens at this point but surely this seems to be the way ahead and there is a lot of research that seems to be happening around it. There is no doubt that these kinds of sensors would be available in the future to detect the presence of a specific virus or bacteria in the air. Tomorrow’s blow test might be able to detect not just alcohol but also if you have a Corona or Sars virus which sends out alarm especially in places like airports.
Future of IoT is, therefore, going to brighter and broader and bigger as many more such abilities or skills get added to its bag of tricks!!!