Jump to content

Software for COVID-19 pandemic mitigation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Software for COVID-19 pandemic mitigation takes many forms. It includes mobile apps for contact tracing and notifications about infection risks, vaccine passports, software for enabling – or improving the effectiveness of – lockdowns and social distancing, Web software for the creation of related information services, and research and development software. A common issue is that few apps interoperate, reducing their effectiveness.

Contact tracing

[edit]
A contact tracing app

COVID-19 apps include mobile-software applications for digital contact-tracing—i.e. the process of identifying persons ("contacts") who may have been in contact with an infected individual—deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Numerous tracing applications have been developed or proposed, with official government support in some territories and jurisdictions. Several frameworks for building contact-tracing apps have been developed. Privacy concerns have been raised, especially about systems that are based on tracking the geographical location of app users.

Less overtly intrusive alternatives include the co-option of Bluetooth signals to log a user's proximity to other cellphones. (Bluetooth technology has form in tracking cell-phones' locations.)) On 10 April 2020, Google and Apple jointly announced that they would integrate functionality to support such Bluetooth-based apps directly into their Android and iOS operating systems. India's COVID-19 tracking app Aarogya Setu became the world's fastest growing application—beating Pokémon Go—with 50 million users in the first 13 days of its release. (Full article...)

Design

[edit]

Design decisions relate to issues such as privacy, data-storage and security. Apps are generally not interoperable.[1][2]

Use

[edit]

Voluntary use by the public was ineffective.[3][4][5] A lack of features and bugs further reduced usefulness.[6]

Some apps include "check-ins" that enable exposure notifications when entering public venues such as fitness centres.[7] One such example is the We-Care project that used anonymity and crowdsourced information about which check-ins are essential, to alert exposed users.[8][9][10]

Digital vaccination certificates

[edit]

Digital vaccine passports and vaccination certificates use software for verifying vaccination status.[4]

Such certificates were used to regulate access to events, buildings and services such as airplanes, concert venues and health clubs[4] and travel across borders.[11]

Hurdles

[edit]

Given the uneven distribution of vaccines across jurisdictions, granting privileges based on vaccination status certification means that those with easier vaccine access have unfair access to those privileges.[12] If vaccination status is only verifiable using digital technology, those without that technology may also lose access even if they are vaccinated. Such privileging mechanisms may exacerbate inequality,[13] increase risks of deliberate infections or transmission,[11][14] Public health justifications for restricting behavior based on vaccine status have become less frequent over the course of the pandemic as vaccines do not stop transmission.

Design

[edit]

Some teams are developing interoperable solutions, but this is not common.[4][15] Governments express concerns over data sovereignty.[16]

WHO established a "working group focused on establishing standards for a common architecture for a digital smart vaccination certificate to support vaccine(s) against COVID-19 and other immunizations".[13][17]

The COVID-19 Credentials Initiative hosted by Linux Foundation Public Health (LFPH) is a global initiative working to develop and deploy privacy-preserving, tamper-evident and verifiable credential certification projects based on the open standard Verifiable Credentials (VCs).[18][19][14]

Laurin Weissinger argued that it is important for such software to be fully free and open source, to clarify concepts and designs, to have it tested by security experts and to describe data that is collected and how it is used to build trust.[20] Jenny Wanger contended that it is essential for such software to be open source.[21] Jay Stanley affirmed this notion and warned that an "architecture that is not good for transparency, privacy, or user control" could set a "bad standard" for future credentialing systems.[22]

Websites

[edit]

Web dashboards[23][24] are widely used for tracking the status of the pandemic.[citation needed]

The Wikimedia project Scholia provides a graphical interface around data in Wikidata – such as literature about a specific coronavirus protein – to help with research, research-analysis, data interoperability, applications, updates, and data-mining.[25][26]

A group of online archivists used open access PHP- and Linux-based shadow library Sci-Hub to create an archive of over 5000 articles about coronaviruses. Making the archive openly accessible is currently illegal.[27] Sci-Hub provides free full access for most scientific pandemic publications.[citation needed]

Multiple scientific publishers created open access portals, including the Cambridge University Press,[28] the Europe branch of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition,[29] The Lancet,[30] John Wiley and Sons,[31] and Springer Nature.[32]

Physician and open access advocate Josh Farkas has added a chapter on COVID-19 treatment to his e-book on intensive care medicine, hosted by EMCrit.[33]

Medical software

[edit]

GNU Health

[edit]
GNU Health patient main screen as of 2013

The open source, Qt-[34][35] and GTK-based GNU Health offer a variety of default features for use during pandemics.[24] It allows parties to pool efforts on a single, integrated program – instead of individual, programs for specific purposes. Existing features include a way for making clinical information available and update it in any health institution via a globally unique "Person Universal ID". It includes lab test templates and functionalities, digital signing and encryption.[36]

Vaccination management

[edit]

Software helps manage vaccine distribution, including verifying the cold chain, and to record vaccination events.[37]

Screening

[edit]

In China, Web-technologies were used to direct individuals to appropriate resources. Infrared thermal cameras are used to detect individuals with fever.[38] Machine learning has been used for diagnosis and risk prediction.[38]

Quarantining

[edit]

Electronic monitoring has been used to manage quarantine adherence.Furthermore, various software designs may threaten civil liberties and infringe on privacy.[38] China informs individuals about whether and how long they must quarantine via a phone app and informs authorities about their compliance.[39]

Genomic data

[edit]
SARS-CoV-2 mutations graph clades on Nextstrain

Nextstrain is an open source platform for pathogen genomic data such as about viral evolution and was used for research about novel variants.

Vaccine production

[edit]

Software has been used in leaks and industrial espionage of vaccine-related data.[40] Machine learning has been applied to improve vaccine manufacturing productivity.[41]

Modelling

[edit]

Software models and simulations for SARS-CoV-2, including spread,[42] functional mechanisms and properties,[43][44][42] efficacy of potential treatments,[44][42] transmission risks, vaccination modelling/monitoring, (computational fluid dynamics, computational epidemiology, computational biology/computational systems biology were developed by governments, universities, and companies.

Modelling software and related software is also used to evaluate impacts on the environment and the economy.

Distributed computing

[edit]
The folding@home client

The volunteer distributed computing project Folding@home simulates protein folding. It was used for medical research. In March 2020 it became the world's first system to reach one exaFLOPS[45][46][47] and reached approximately 2.43 x86 exaFLOPS by 13 April 2020 – many times faster than Summit, the fastest supercomputer of that time.[48]

That month Rosetta@home joined the effort. Researchers announced that Rosetta@home allowed them to "accurately predict the atomic-scale structure of an important coronavirus protein weeks before it could be measured in the lab."[49]

In May 2020, the OpenPandemics—COVID-19 partnership was launched between Scripps Research and IBM's World Community Grid. The partnership is a distributed computing project that "will automatically run a simulated experiment in the background [of connected home PCs] that will help predict the efficacy of a particular chemical compound as a potential treatment for COVID-19."[50]

Drug repurposing research and drug development

[edit]

Supercomputers – including Summit and Fugaku – have been used to explore potential treatments by running simulations with data on already-approved medications.[51][52][53][42][44] Two early examples of supercomputer consortia are:

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Faragher, Ramsey. "We Are Losing Sight Of What Contact Tracing Apps Are For". Forbes. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  2. ^ Ranisch, Robert; Nijsingh, Niels; Ballantyne, Angela; van Bergen, Anne; Buyx, Alena; Friedrich, Orsolya; Hendl, Tereza; Marckmann, Georg; Munthe, Christian; Wild, Verina (21 October 2020). "Digital contact tracing and exposure notification: ethical guidance for trustworthy pandemic management". Ethics and Information Technology. 23 (3): 285–294. doi:10.1007/s10676-020-09566-8. ISSN 1572-8439. PMC 7577205. PMID 33106749.
  3. ^ "Too few Germans using coronavirus pandemic tracing app | DW | 17.09.2020". Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d "Vaccine passport apps are here. But the technical challenges are still coming". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 9 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  5. ^ "96% of Canadians who test positive for coronavirus aren't using COVID Alert app properly". Global News. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  6. ^ "Corona-Warn-App 2.0: Check-in per QR-Code startet nach Ostern". t3n Magazin (in German). 31 March 2021. Archived from the original on 7 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  7. ^ "Update der Corona-Warn-App: Anonym einchecken per QR-Code". tagesschau.de (in German). Archived from the original on 8 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  8. ^ "Coronavirus tracing apps prevalent outside the US, fail to gain foothold stateside". cbs8.com. July 21, 2020. Archived from the original on 2021-10-22. Retrieved 2021-11-01.
  9. ^ "UC Davis Computer Scientists Launch App To Help Slow Spread Of COVID-19". 2020-05-27. Archived from the original on 2021-10-22. Retrieved 2021-11-01.
  10. ^ "States Ramp Up Contact Tracing Amidst Privacy Concerns - State Net". www.lexisnexis.com. Archived from the original on 2021-11-08. Retrieved 2021-11-01.
  11. ^ a b "Covid-status certificates could lead to deliberate infections, scientists warn". The Guardian. 11 April 2021. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  12. ^ "Government calls for input into Covid-19 vaccine passports". ComputerWeekly.com. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  13. ^ a b Cohen, Joshua. "Covid-19 Vaccine Passports Could Exacerbate Global Inequities". Forbes. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  14. ^ a b Yeginsu, Ceylan (14 April 2021). "What Are the Roadblocks to a 'Vaccine Passport'?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 16 April 2021.
  15. ^ Lerman, Rachel. "Vaccine passport apps are here. But the technical challenges are still coming". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 9 March 2022. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  16. ^ "Covid-19 Vaccine Passports Are Coming. What Will That Mean?". Wired. Archived from the original on 11 April 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  17. ^ "Smart Vaccination Certificate Working Group". www.who.int. Archived from the original on 8 April 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  18. ^ "COVID-19 Credentials initiative : Home". www.covidcreds.org. Archived from the original on 9 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  19. ^ February 8, R. Dallon Adams in Innovation on (8 February 2021). "Open source "vaccine passports:" Linux Foundation Public Health talks development, security, and digitally restoring trust". TechRepublic. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  20. ^ "Vaccination passport apps could help society reopen—if they are secure, private and trusted". phys.org. Archived from the original on 9 March 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  21. ^ Mzezewa, Tariro (4 February 2021). "Coming Soon: The 'Vaccine Passport'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 8 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  22. ^ Elassar, Alaa. "ACLU warns 'a lot can go wrong' with digital vaccine passports". CNN. Archived from the original on 5 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  23. ^ "NASA COVID-19 Dashboards Give a View of the Virus's Effects from Above | NASA Applied Sciences". appliedsciences.nasa.gov. 11 January 2021. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  24. ^ a b "An introduction to GNU Health Embedded — Free Software Foundation — Working together for free software". www.fsf.org. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  25. ^ Waagmeester, Andra; Willighagen, Egon L.; Su, Andrew I.; Kutmon, Martina; Gayo, Jose Emilio Labra; Fernández-Álvarez, Daniel; Groom, Quentin; Schaap, Peter J.; Verhagen, Lisa M.; Koehorst, Jasper J. (4 June 2020). "A protocol for adding knowledge to Wikidata, a case report". bioRxiv: 2020.04.05.026336. doi:10.1101/2020.04.05.026336. S2CID 215731495. Archived from the original on 9 March 2022. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  26. ^ Waagmeester, Andra; Willighagen, Egon L.; Su, Andrew I.; Kutmon, Martina; Gayo, Jose Emilio Labra; Fernández-Álvarez, Daniel; Groom, Quentin; Schaap, Peter J.; Verhagen, Lisa M.; Koehorst, Jasper J. (22 January 2021). "A protocol for adding knowledge to Wikidata: aligning resources on human coronaviruses". BMC Biology. 19 (12): 12. doi:10.1186/s12915-020-00940-y. PMC 7820539. PMID 33482803.
  27. ^ Bender, Maddie (2020-02-03). "'It's a Moral Imperative:' Archivists Made a Directory of 5,000 Coronavirus Studies to Bypass Paywalls". Vice. Archived from the original on 2020-02-04. Retrieved 2020-02-27.
  28. ^ "Coronavirus Free Access Collection". Cambridge University Press. 2020. Archived from the original on 2 August 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  29. ^ "The Coronavirus and Open Science: Our reads and Open use cases". Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Europe. March 2020. Archived from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  30. ^ "The Lancet COVID-19 Resource Centre". Elsevier Inc. April 2020. Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  31. ^ "Covid-19: Novel Coronavirus Outbreak". John Wiley & Sons, Inc. March 2020. Archived from the original on 24 September 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  32. ^ "SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19". Springer Nature. 2020. Archived from the original on 2 August 2020. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  33. ^ "Management of COVID-19 patients admitted to stepdown or ICU". EMCrit Project. February 11, 2023. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
  34. ^ "MyGNUHealth PHR: A technical introduction" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-04-10. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  35. ^ "PIM / MyGNUHealth". GitLab. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  36. ^ Falcón, Luis (9 April 2020). "Tackling the beast: Using GNU Health to help the fight against the | Joinup". joinup.ec.europa.eu. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  37. ^ "COVID-19 vaccine rollout may be delayed - with IT system 'failing constantly'". Sky News. Archived from the original on 13 April 2021. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
  38. ^ a b c Whitelaw, Sera; Mamas, Mamas A.; Topol, Eric; Spall, Harriette G. C. Van (1 August 2020). "Applications of digital technology in COVID-19 pandemic planning and response". The Lancet Digital Health. 2 (8): e435–e440. doi:10.1016/S2589-7500(20)30142-4. ISSN 2589-7500. PMC 7324092. PMID 32835201.
  39. ^ Smith, Helen-Ann. "The 'green code' app: How China's Zero COVID policy is turning cities, parks, restaurants and shops into digitised fortresses". Sky News. Retrieved 2022-11-12.
  40. ^ Stubbs, Jack (10 December 2020). "Hackers steal Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine data in Europe, companies say". Reuters. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  41. ^ Service, Robert F. (7 August 2020). "AI invents new 'recipes' for potential COVID-19 drugs". Science | AAAS. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  42. ^ a b c d "Supercomputers, giant accelerators lend a hand in the fight against coronavirus". University of Chicago News. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  43. ^ "UChicago chemists race to decode RNA of new coronavirus". University of Chicago News. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  44. ^ a b c Gray, Ellen (28 May 2020). "NASA Supercomputers Power COVID-19 Research". NASA. Archived from the original on 15 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  45. ^ "Folding@Home Crushes Exascale Barrier, Now Faster Than Dozens of Supercomputers - ExtremeTech". www.extremetech.com. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  46. ^ "Folding@home crowdsourced computing project passes 1 million downloads amid coronavirus research". VentureBeat. 31 March 2020. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  47. ^ "The coronavirus pandemic turned Folding@Home into an exaFLOP supercomputer". Ars Technica. 14 April 2020. Archived from the original on 23 April 2020. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  48. ^ Tung, Liam. "CERN throws 10,000 CPU cores at Folding@home coronavirus simulation project". ZDNet. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  49. ^ "Rosetta@home Rallies a Legion of Computers Against the Coronavirus". HPCwire. 2020-03-24. Archived from the original on 2020-04-09. Retrieved 2021-09-27.
  50. ^ "OpenPandemics - COVID-19". IBM. 2020. Archived from the original on August 17, 2020. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
  51. ^ "San Diego supercomputer uncovers several potential COVID-19 treatments". KGTV. 6 January 2021. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  52. ^ "Japanese supercomputer finds 30 existing drugs potentially effective to treat COVID-19". Mainichi Daily News. 4 July 2020. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  53. ^ "World's fastest supercomputer finds 77 potential COVID-19 treatments". Futurism. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 10 April 2021.
  54. ^ a b Shankland S (23 March 2020). "Sixteen supercomputers tackle coronavirus cures in the US". CNET. ViacomCBS. Archived from the original on 20 September 2020. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  55. ^ a b "The COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium". The COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium. 2020. Archived from the original on 23 September 2020. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  56. ^ Wiggers, Kyle (28 May 2020). "COVID-19 HPC Consortium pours 437 petaflops of compute power toward virus research". VentureBeat. Retrieved 1 April 2022.
  57. ^ "C3.ai, Microsoft, and Leading Universities Launch C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute". C3.ai. 2020-03-26. Archived from the original on 2020-08-14. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  58. ^ Broad W (26 March 2020). "A.I. Versus the Coronavirus". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 31 August 2020. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
[edit]