Abstract
As of August 6th, 2021, the World Health Organization has notified 200.8 million laboratory-confirmed infections and 4.26 million deaths from COVID-19, making it the worst pandemic since the 1918 flu. The main challenges in mitigating COVID-19 are effective vaccination, treatment, and agile containment strategies. In this review, we focus on the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in COVID-19 surveillance, diagnosis, outcome prediction, drug discovery and vaccine development. With the help of big data, AI tries to mimic the cognitive capabilities of a human brain, such as problem-solving and learning abilities. Machine Learning (ML), a subset of AI, holds special promise for solving problems based on experiences gained from the curated data. Advances in AI methods have created an unprecedented opportunity for building agile surveillance systems using the deluge of real-time data generated within a short span of time. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many reports have discussed the utility of AI approaches in prioritization, delivery, surveillance, and supply chain of drugs, vaccines, and non-pharmaceutical interventions. This review will discuss the clinical utility of AI-based models and will also discuss limitations and challenges faced by AI systems, such as model generalizability, explainability, and trust as pillars for real-life deployment in healthcare.
Highlights
COVID-19, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is the worst pandemic since the 1918 Spanish Flu
COVID-19 infection can be divided into three main phases [25,26,27]: the initial phase where SARS-CoV-2 replicates and symptoms are generally mild; this is followed by a phase where respiratory symptoms continue, and infection stimulates the adaptive immune system, which if remaining uncontrolled, leads to a third phase causing hyper-inflammation and death [25]
The world is going through another wave of COVID-19 infections
Summary
COVID-19, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is the worst pandemic since the 1918 Spanish Flu. Within weeks of the first outbreak in December 2019 in the Wuhan city of China, the disease took epidemic proportions in China and other countries. On January 30th, 2020, COVID-19 was declared as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and subsequently, on March 11th, 2020, COVID19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). The COVID19 pandemic has resulted in a total of 200.8 million cases worldwide, with a reported 4.26 million deaths as of August 6th, 2021 [1]. In terms of the total number of infections and mortality, the USA, India and Brazil are the most severely hit by COVID-19 [1]. We will focus on the role of Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools in managing the COVID-19 pandemic
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