Fig. 1 Summary of COVID-19 symptoms, preventive measures, it’s global impact and mitigation effort

Preventive Measures. There is currently no vaccine to prevent COVID-19 disease or medication to treat it. Therefore, preventive measures are crucial in light of the spread of the virus to reduce the risk of encountering it. Among the preventive measures currently put in place: washing hands with soap or alcohol-based hand wash for at least 20 seconds, practising social distancing and keeping a distance of at least 2 meters apart, wearing surgical masks, and avoiding touching the face, mouth, eyes, and nose . Other preventive measures include cleaning high-touch hard surfaces often, using regular household cleaners, covering coughs and sneezes, staying home, and monitoring one’s health. People are advised to be alert for symptoms and watch for fever, cough, shortness of breath, or other symptoms of COVID-19 to prevent the spread of the virus and transmitting it to others .

Global Impact. The virus is not only affecting the health of people but also impacting their day-to-day lives and the global economy. Many countries have declared restrictive measures, such as lockdown and stay at home orders, to contain and mitigate the pandemic. As a result, more than 3.9 billion people, or half of the world’s population, had their movement restricted by early April. The lockdown also implied that most factories, markets, and business are to be temporarily closed, most public transport suspended, and construction work halted. As a result, COVID-19 not only has implications on people’s health but significantly impacted businesses and the global economy. Due to the suspension of many businesses, the economic slowdown was profound, and the damage was serious. The economic damage caused by COVID-19 includes supply chain interruptions, lost tourism, spiking unemployment, defaulted loans, the likelihood of major government bailouts, and food crisis.

Mitigation Efforts. In addition to the preventive measures which individuals can follow, there have been mitigation efforts put in place by governments and organizations to contain the virus. For instance, several applications across the world have been built to track COVID-19 patients and tracing their contacts. Accurate identification of cases, contact tracing and isolation can hardly be performed with conventional methods, and the use of targeted phone apps could highly improve the efficiency of these processes. In addition to the initiated applications, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has implemented a national disinfection program which entails complete sterilization of all public utilities, public transport, metro services and roads. The UAE has also stepped up its efforts in testing patients for COVID-19 by opening several drive-through centres across the country. In addition to the disinfection program and drive-through testing centres, the UAE like many other countries had recourse to other mitigation strategies such as building field hospitals, imposing travel bans, cancelling public activities and events, suspending places of worship and their facilities, calling for the postponement of social events, closing entertainment venues, closing public parks and beaches and installing thermal detection systems at the entrances of malls and public areas .

People from all over the world are working hard to find the best solutions concerning the development and testing of vaccines, preventing the spread of infection and quick identification of viral carriers since coronavirus is extremely contagious. In the current sense of epidemic management, blockchain is evolving as a crucial technology solution in providing a transparent, reliable and low-cost solution to facilitate successful decision-making which could effectively result in contributing to quicker intervention during this crisis. Blockchain is now showing enough opportunities to become an integral part in fighting against COVID-19 as it would enable efficient tracking and monitoring solutions, ensure a transparent supply chain of vital products and donations and secure payments. This is possible because blockchain comprises of a chronologically ordered list of encrypted signatures, a secure distributed ledger containing permanent transaction records which are shared by all members in the network . Moreover, adopting blockchains and public ledgers maximizes cost savings by eliminating intermediaries that handle manual transactions.

The blockchain platform consists of mainly three components which are data block, distributed ledger and consensus algorithm. Each component is explained below as follows:

Data block. It can be described as a sequence of blocks interconnecting each newly updated block to its previous block until it gets linked back to its genesis block to create a secure chain. This prevents any risk of modification as each block is strongly linked to the previous one using a hash label which builds a robust link between blocks .

Distributed ledger. It is also known as a database which records and stores transactions generated by users. Each transaction contains a unique cryptographic signature decoupled with a timestamp thereby making the ledger resistant to alterations. Furthermore, this ledger is shared across all members of the network simultaneously so that users are updated in real-time.

Consensus algorithm. No entity should be able to control the process of transacting a block over the chain so that each block is managed by all members who share equal rights to overcome security problems such as double-spending. This is achieved through the process known as consensus. From the blockchain’s point of view, the consensus process establishes an agreement among entities regarding the validation of each data block. This is achieved by nodes joining in the mining process and competing with one another to verify the block to receive a fee as a reward in return for their mining effort. For example, Bitcoin uses a Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm to manage its transactions while Ethereum uses Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm. Also, there are various other algorithms as well such as the Byzantine Faulty Tolerant (BFT) algorithm .