Ingenious Smart Contact Tracing Solutions for the Pandemic

Ingenious Smart Contact Tracing Solutions for the Pandemic
Ingenious Smart Contact Tracing Solutions for the Pandemic

Have you asked yourself why some countries contain an outbreak faster than others? The answer is easy. They develop efficient and effective contact tracing solutions. To do this, understanding the patterns and channels of disease transmission among neighboring persons is critical, and enhances remedial interventions. Globally, nations are embracing the use of mobile technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) to identify individuals who have come into contact with infected patients.

Modern Contact Tracing Solutions in Use Today

We’ve all gone digital! Almost 89% of the world’s population has a mobile device making it one of the best contact tracing solutions devices. Globally, GPS and Bluetooth technologies have become reliable tools for medical monitoring among high-risk populations. The relevance of using the two technologies has significantly featured in contact tracing covid responses.

Among many uses in the medical field, the techniques aid in the clinical monitoring of vulnerable people and maintenance of patient records or disease symptoms in the population. Also, governments and healthcare facilities have used them to deliver text notifications to consumers.

Nations have found mobile use among the top contact tracing solutions that would help mitigate Covid-19 spread. The technologies dispense real-time information to relevant authorities for action. Thus, rapid management of the pandemic is in place within no time.

Again, these technologies have assisted governments, and healthcare providers in managing the demand and supply of medical equipment and vaccines. Unlike any other time in history, deploying medical resources to disease-hit areas is fast and effective. Old-school contact tracing solutions are a no-match for the modern computerized system!

Modern Contact Tracing Solutions in Use Today

Bluetooth Solution

Beacons’ Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) broadcast is critical in the Internet of Things protocols. The Bluetooth technology has a variety of applications that offer Internet of Things solutions in broadcast radio signals. Some of the notable characteristics of BLE technology include;

Operation: The operational range is a radius of about 200 feet.
Energy consumption: BLE has low energy consumption compared to other technologies such as GPS.
Size: BLE is small and lightweight, hence easy to carry along.
Community help feature: With BLE, users can make a report and seek the help of other users in tracking the spread of a disease anonymously.

GPS Technology

GPS systems use satellites, radio receivers, and algorithms to coordinate locations. The technology has become beneficial due to its ability to provide users with navigational, positioning, and timing information. Here are some benefits of GPS systems that make them usable in contact tracing.

• It doesn’t require an app download to be effective.
• People who contact an infected person can activate the Safe Place Web feature, thus creating a manual GPS trail.
• The technology is open source, hence possible for governments to deploy their infrastructure to trace the spread of disease.

Notable GPS and Bluetooth Technology Benefits for Contact Tracing Solutions

Decision making: Contact tracing data helps educate communities and alter healthcare policies.
Accuracy: Bluetooth and GPS contact tracking has precision compared to patients’ memories traditional contact tracing.
Privacy: The system’s opt-in involvement, changing keys, and brief data storage provide greater discretion than traditional approaches.
Easy and fast: Automation minimizes patient engagement time and effort and enhances contact tracking.
Reliability: With GPS and Bluetooth technologies, it’s easy to have enough first-hand data for dependable statistical mobility.
Ease in classification: Professionals can categorize various contact risk methods, which health officials may link to differing degrees of specialist care, notification, and tracing.
Public trust: With a higher level of privacy, people have faith in technological approaches.

Technological Contact Tracing Solutions

Bluetooth contact tracing is beneficial because it uses less energy while providing greater security and precision. Bluetooth technology is applicable in these two ways.

1. It offers contact tracing solutions while employing badge-based solutions.

Contact tracing covid Bluetooth beacon enables you to locate a staff who tests positive for COVID-19 in real-time. Mobile solutions apply low-energy Bluetooth signals in the provision of real-time notifications when a person comes to contact with an infected individual. You may immediately send people home, ending the transmission cycle within a workplace.

2. It uses intelligent gadgets to receive broadcast packets from another smartphone.

Each smartphone operates as a one-way transmitter that continually broadcasts identifiers to multiple Bluetooth-enabled devices within a Bluetooth beacon-covered location. The contact tracing solutions enable you to establish where ill persons and anyone who interacted with them were, thus enhancing the sanitization process.

That keeps the infection from propagating to the entire project team. Individual exposure risk gets assessed using a continually updated algorithm, allowing for more informed decisions. You can, among other things, monitor sanitation, remove crowds and lines, and establish social isolation.

Furthermore, protecting employee safety is critical to resuming economic activity in enterprises and organizations. A Bluetooth beacon can enhance safety measures for both workers and visitors. With that, you stop the transmission and instill confidence in people.

Distinguishing between Contact Tracing and Social Distancing

Contact Tracing vs Social Distancing

Social distancing and contact tracking are two similar but distinct ideas often used interchangeably in discussions about covid contact tracing and control of transmissions. In essence, social distancing and contact tracking complement each other despite the difference. However, the benefits and uses of contact tracing and social distance vary in different contexts.

Contact tracing solutions detect persons who have had close contact with other infected people, allowing them to get tested swiftly or isolated. Contact tracing covid infections is critical for safeguarding employee well-being, significant sanitization actions, and reducing COVID 19 outbreaks in workplaces. It’s a fast measure undertaken to ensure the disease does not spread.

On the other hand, social distancing is keeping a safe distance between oneself and other people to reduce the possibility of serious infectious diseases. A two-meter range is considered the minimum distance individuals should stand apart. It can also be enforced by shutting down public gatherings, including businesses, schools, religious institutions, and social joints.

Contact Tracing Solutions with MOKO BLUE

A Moko Blue Covid-19 contact tracer is a protocol developed by Moko Blue for its Internet of Things systems. It helps medical professionals share vital patient information in real-time within a healthcare facility. With its advanced geo-location feature, health record sharing reaches the right person on time, thus easing up the decision-making process.

The Moko Blue Covid-19 contact tracer is thus an advanced model usable by healthcare staff to detect and retrace the path undertaken by people who test positive for Covid-19. Its smartphone automated properties enhance the speed in sharing information and analyzing data, thus helping in mitigating the spread of the pandemic.

Bluetooth Contact Tracing Mechanism

Bluetooth Tracing Mechanism

Bluetooth contact tracking necessitates the user’s approval. The technology doesn’t collect private information or location data. Surprisingly, the program is compatible with both Android and iPhone devices. Individual privacy gets secured by using a contact tracing Bluetooth beacon to trace infections. It guarantees that people who have tested positive for the Covid virus get identified. Bluetooth technology is also simple and effective.

Let’s say two individuals, X and Y meet for the first time and converse for 10 minutes, and X tests positive for COVID; the findings get entered into a public health authority app. Since their phones will continually exchange random anonymous identifying beacons, Y could receive a notification informing him that he has interacted with a Covid virus-infected individual.

The system regularly downloads the broadcast beacon keys of everyone who has tested positive for the virus in Y’s territory. The technology will send the identified persons instructions on what to do next.

Technical Challenge of contact tracing solutions

Accuracy of Closeness

Distance estimation depending on Received Signal Strength Indicator measurements is theoretically and easily motivated by the distribution of suitable devices. For line-of-sight short-range proximity calculation, the normal variation of wireless link behavior is not all that evident. Attenuation may differ from free space due to various environmental factors.

Multipath may substantially impact, especially in small rooms with reflective surfaces. Nonetheless, averaging over many measurements should be sufficient in most cases. Other problems may arise due to transmission without distinct or direct electromagnetic vision.

Gadget Hardware and Software

Although Bluetooth has several benefits in contact tracing, it still has several hardware and software challenges that limit its effectiveness for this purpose. Such challenges have included;

Power storage: Using Bluetooth technology on a gadget for a long time drains its power fast. That means one must keep recharging their device, which is not advisable.
Time-consuming: Sending a file through Bluetooth will take longer in its delivery. That could be minutes or hours, depending on the size of a file.
Frequency change: Bluetooth technology works on carrier frequencies which keep dropping off from time to time, thus disconnecting the gadgets. That automatically stops the sending of a file.

Percentage of Technology Adoption

Because contact tracing solutions necessitate that a large portion of the population utilizes the program regularly and possesses the underlying technology, the rate of technology coverage is critical. Bluetooth technology has a lot of potential because it is embedded into all modern smartphones and has an extensive network of supported products. However, there is widespread skepticism amongst the broader population regarding the possible uses of contact tracking systems. The top reasons for this skepticism are;

• Government monitoring and control,
• Fear of information loss and privacy concerns, and
• Fear of gadget hacks.

Considerations for Employee Data Safety and Confidentiality

Personal data confidentiality is a hot topic in the contemporary world. While the information collected has found good use, it has fallen into criminals’ hands on some other occasions. Presently, there are numerous regulations meant to protect personal data.

Most people are concerned that the widespread use of contact-tracing solutions could jeopardize decades of gains in confidentiality regulations. That has, in turn, reduced the effectiveness of digital contact tracing solutions.

What Is at Stake?

The application of digital contact tracing Covid mechanism has posed a dilemma in government and medical circles. Despite its significance in the prevention of Covid-19 spread, the risk of breach of privacy is real. On one end, the government wants to know where to concentrate resources, while on the other, it must protect personal information.

Similarly, doctors want to maintain patient privacy while at the same time wanting to share helpful medical information. In that kind of situation, society is faced with two dangerous choices to risk losing personal information or the spread of the pandemic. It’s a hard choice, but one must choose the lesser evil.

Employee Wellbeing in the Aftermath of an Outbreak

Caution is essential in the aftermath of any epidemic. Many industries will use social distance and even contact tracking until reopening. Bluetooth beacons are ideal for use during pandemics, but they may also aid in the protection of you and your staff in other ways.

Workers’ well-being is vital! As a result, Bluetooth beacons are an ideal future defensive option. Beacons, irrespective of business, lets you locate each worker’s exact position in real-time, even when GPS information is unavailable. The location information is accurate. Furthermore, the system may send notifications to various requirements and occurrences.

Contact Tracing Solutions Layout

Contact Tracing Solutions Layout

Contact tracing solutions architecture consists of four key components. Each component has a specific purpose. They all contribute to what we term a contact tracing solution.

1. Beaconing tag

It’s a Bluetooth fixed infrastructure offering a one-way trigger code feature and broadcast applicable in smartphone apps for additional data.

2. Proximity detector

It transmits and tracks SMS depending on the presence or absence of a beaconing tag’s location. Again, it necessitates resources to do mesh processes and regularly scan advertising channels, operating the model linked with the contact tracking application and the entire stack.

3. Mesh relay

The advertising bearer transfers messages from other nodes to other nodes in the mesh. The Bluetooth mesh protocol serves the same purpose as a generic relay. As a result, it receives mesh network security credentials.

4. Gateway node

It interfaces with the contact tracing server and performs sophisticated proximity data processing and storage. In this case, the gateway should execute the pattern linked with the contact tracing applications and provide APIs for interfacing with the contact tracing server.

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