AI and Big Data in the UAE's Fight Against COVID-19

Preface

Whether we call it the Wuhan virus, the novel Corona Virus or COVID-19, this pathogen is the invisible enemy that has wreaked havoc on a global or biblical scale at an unparalleled rate. There are two reasons for this. First, we live in the age of globalization, where the world is a small village both on the virtual and, more pertinent to our discussion, the physical level. Although globalization has immensely benefited humanity, it has also exposed a significant vulnerability, exemplified by the capacity for diseases and viruses to spread quickly from one end of the earth to the other. In addition to globalization, the virus's characteristics also contributed to the severe impacts it had, since none of the recent illnesses that outbreak around the world were as severe as COVID-19. Unlike other outbreaks, especially SARS and MERS, COVID-19 has a much lower fatality rate of about 3.4 percent1 and is more infectious. On the other hand the fatality rates for SARS and MERS were 9.6 percent2 and 35 percent, respectively. It may appear counter-intuitive at first, but because of its low fatality rate, a greater number of infected people would live on and spread COVID-19 than those who would live on and spread SARS or MERS...