Fighting Covid-19 Pandemic Using AI Computer Vision

In recent years, AI computer vision has been utilized in numerous industries all around the world. From manufacturing, retail, transportation, health, and many more. In 2020, AI computer vision is even used for something that is really important, fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China.

SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads between people, mainly when an infected person is in close contact with another person. The virus spreads from an infected person’s mouth or nose in droplets when they cough, sneeze, speak, sing or breathe heavily. 

A year after the first COVID-19 case in Wuhan, the pandemic doesn’t stop. It still spreads in several countries, including Indonesia. The World Health Organization (WHO) issues six principles to break the chain of coronavirus, including mask wearing, physical distancing, and limit social gatherings. 

In line with WHO’s COVID-19 health protocol, the Government of Indonesia also issued regulations for citizens to always wear their masks everywhere, avoid social gathering, maintain their distance, and oblige buildings or other facilities to have their visitors’ body temperature checked before they can enter. To enforce COVID-19 health protocols, the government allocates civil service units to patrol around the cities, or conduct a health check at checkpoints in some areas. 

Meanwhile, building management also set a new procedure in their buildings. They provide hand sanitizers, and conduct a temperature check, oblige their visitors to wear masks, and limit their building occupancy.

Imagine how many civil service units or building security personnel that need to be allocated to enforce the COVID-19 protocols? With the help of computer vision technology, government or building management can automate those processes while optimizing the on-ground security personnel allocation. 

In big cities, there are hundreds or even thousands of CCTVs around the corner. If those CCTVs are upgraded with AI computer vision technology, it will be able to detect people who don’t wear masks or people who still gather or don’t maintain their distance. Combined with a response management system, those cameras can also send notifications to the nearest officers, allowing them to reprimand the people who don’t oblige with the regulations. Other than for cities, it can also be implemented for buildings. 

In addition AI computer vision can be also utilized for the attendance system. Rather than using the conventional method like fingerprints or cards, a camera with AI computer vision ability can be used to recognize employees’ faces to make them clock-in automatically without having to do anything. This will reduce the COVID-19 transmission as it doesn’t need any direct or indirect physical contact. 

If we take it further, AI computer vision can be combined with a thermal camera. By combining these two remarkable technologies, the health check process at the building entrance can be carried out flawlessly, without queueing. It can also prevent the COVID-19 transmission as it doesn’t evolve human (security) intervention. 

At the end of the day, all of the data gathered is also well-recorded, and can be visualized in a dashboard. The dashboard is useful for the government or building management to get valuable insight on people traffic and their conditions. This will allow them to formulate better decisions based on the data in the future.