Coronavirus has affected everything in the world including the start-ups and their regular work activities. We can see various corporations and individuals getting directly impacted. Some of its other dramatic impacts are limitations on international travel and events and disruption in global supply chains.
Since many people are going for voluntary quarantine and travel as well as events are limited, therefore communication and transactions are increasingly made online. Platforms like zoom are very busy nowadays because several offline expos are shifting to the virtual expo format and F2F meetings are not happening.
Below are the various ways in which the internet of things (IoT) can assist in combating the Coronavirus:
- Remote health monitoring
- Hospital room monitoring
- Sick patient tracking
- Asset and device management
- Hospital equipment tracking
- Identifying gatherings in public areas
Various companies are trying to work more for the benefit of the customers, as much as tolerance and extra customer support go. Revenue expansion is important but in times of crisis, the health and personal safety of the customers is a priority. Conscious decisions need to be made to be more easy-going and supportive with the customers, which includes offering discount pricing to those who are struggling.
Remote Health Monitoring

Companies can start services to facilitate the monitoring of patients in a hospital quarantine. The hardware can be provided which allows them to undertake a medical examination without direct contact of the staff.
Patients are encouraged by the health officials to use an app to connect remotely to a doctor who can check their symptoms and assist them while they’re still at home. Patients in Singapore use an app called MaNaDr, to consult a doctor and report on their symptoms. The doctor checks them regularly and orders an ambulance if their condition is deteriorating.
IoT robots are used to clean, disinfect, deliver medicines, and take patients’ temperatures in a field hospital in Wuhan, China to scale critical ICU nursing resources during the pandemic. Hospital administrators revealed that the robots better-scaled nursing resources for critical care and also decreased the spread of the virus to the hospital workforce.
The well-known Mayo Clinic in the U.S is reported to have consulted the creators of remote monitoring tools regarding the methods to routinely monitor patients with COVID-19 who don’t need intensive care.
Likewise, other IoT devices are used to measure health metrics such as temperature, blood pressure, and blood sugar several times per day, and the results get stored on the cloud automatically, from which doctors get alerts in case the readings are not normal.
Hospital Sick Patient Tracking

Hospitals must be aware of how to instantly locate contagious patients during a main medical emergency or a pandemic so that the healthy patients or workforce is not infected. ID card with sensors can be provided to all patients and hospital staff members to recognize the affected patients and those who are in their vicinity, by broadcasting where these patients are positioned.
Based on the distance, healthcare officials can identify the affected individuals exactly where they are and what other people are in the same zones as those who are sick. Those doctors/staff who were within this pre-defined vicinity can be removed selectively and the entire hospital does not need to be removed when an additional infected person is identified.
Identifying Gatherings in Public Areas
This also holds true for recognizing when are people gathering in big numbers and where. Large gathering or individuals breaching thresholds can be detected by connecting to telco systems, and by connecting to all location data. IoT can offer some support to lessen the damage done by the pandemic.
Aerial Thermography Using Drones With Thermal Cameras

Drones with thermal camera scanners can be used to detect the temperatures of people in quarantine to stop the chain of the spread of the Corona Virus. The individuals with unusual body temperature can be identified in a crowd by the high-tech monitoring devices – a technique known as aerial thermography.
Traditional methods can be risky as well as expensive but using drones for thermography is safe as well as economical. Therefore authorities are using drones to detect the body temperature of the large crowds on the street, storing their information on the cloud and sending it to health officials so that the treatments could be started as soon as possible.