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 .
Blockchain Technology
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 .