The COVID-19 crisis: A digital policy overview

A number of tech companies and medical and scientific institutions worldwide put their faith into digital technologies - particularly AI - in an attempt to halt a steady increase in the number of people and countries affected by COVID-19. China’s top tech giants have opened their AI and cloud computing solutions to researchers for free to use the full potential of these technologies to predict the course of disease development and find a vaccine for the virus.

Days before the WHO issued an alert on the COVID-19 outbreak, a Canadian AI company called BlueDot had already warned of the disease. BlueDot’s AI-powered algorithms process an enormous amount of unstructured data from 100,000 news articles in 65 languages on a daily basis. Its massive pool of data includes animal disease, temperature, and climate information, as well as flight records that all help to predict virus spread patterns.

AI has also joined the quest for a COVID-19 cure. According to media reports, a group of researchers used AI to detect an existing drug that might limit the virus’s ability to infect people, whereas another company revealed that its AI algorithms had already designed six new molecules that could prevent the virus from replicating in people’s bodies. 

There are also examples of AI being deployed in the form of tiny robots serving food and providing medical help to quarantined people in China or as chatbots that screen individuals and tell them whether they should be evaluated in case of possible infection.

However, AI can disappoint at times. Its superhuman analytical capabilities may stumble upon a series of hurdles ranging from faulty data to external factors not taken into consideration by AI algorithms. For instance, an AI-powered simulation predicted that COVID-19 could infect 2.5 billion people and kill as many as 52.9 million of them on the basis of publicly available data released by China. However, the model does not know every factor, and many conditions, such as the mortality rate tend to continuously change and thus hamper the credibility of the prediction.

Apart from AI, blockchain technology can also contribute to the fight against COVID-19. It can record and track all the donations for the current epidemic and provide transparency to all stakeholders. 

COVID-19 has also caused quite a stir in terms of cybersecurity. Betting their chips on fear, cybercriminals are said to exploit the situation and spread malicious PDF and Word documents, as well as mp4 files, with misleading information about COVID-19. 

Spam emails sent to users in Japan, containing Emotet malware that informed individuals about the propagation of COVID-19, were also discovered by a team from IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence. Recipients were asked to download a document with additional information on the matter thus allowing hackers to steal sensitive information and demand ransomware.

As the outbreak spreads, warnings emerge of possible cyberattacks. Financial institutions have been encouraged to 'prepare for an increase in cyberattack as criminals seek advantage of potential chaos caused by COVID-19'. 

To compensate for the lack of reporting and the suppression of information in media, individuals are taking to social networks to exchange information and to circulate videos and images of the current situation in hospitals. Nevertheless, in order to prevent the spread of ‘rumors’, communication on social media is being censored and as such has affected the right to freedom of expression. According to several sources, including Amnesty International, activists have been detained, harassed, and intimidated by the authorities for the content on the pandemic that they posted online. 

Concerns on the violation of the right to privacy and data protection (e.g. data disclosure and security concerns related to possible manipulation through cyber-attacks, identity theft and data abuse) have also been raised by civil society groups, academics, and data protection authorities worldwide. In a number of countries, authorities have resorted to surveillance technology to track infected individuals and quarantine them.

The so-called contract tracing apps operate in such a way that they help detect other users of the app who are in close proximity, with the aim of determining whether people have been in contact with others who have the virus, so they can get tested or quarantined and thus limit the further spread of infection. 

So far, two approaches - centralised and decentralised, with regard to data storing have gained attention. The centralised model such as the Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) implies that the users’ data is stored on a central server which in turn means that the data could be accessed by the authority controlling the server. Countries, such as France and India prefer this approach, arguing that it provides more insight into the spread of COVID-19.

Inversely, the decentralised approach favoured by Apple and Google relies on local storage (users’ devices) of data. This model is supported by Switzerland, Estonia, and Germany.

The role of data in the COVID-19 crisis cannot be highlighted enough. From early warning identification to monitoring and risk assessment of the pandemic, data collection has been central. 

Much of the attention is accorded to data collection that enabled the prediction and identification of the pandemic. As noted above, on the basis of data collected by BlueDot, an early warning on the virus was communicated to the WHO. Similarly, data collected by medical centres on patients’ geographic location and infection situation was entered into a government database known as the “National Infectious Disease Monitoring Information System Database” which ultimately helped Chinese authorities identify the outbreak of COVID-19.

Data visualisation has also been put to use. Online data platforms have been created to track the spread of the pandemic worldwide. One such tool has been developed by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University in order to combat what the Washington Post called a “pandemic of misinformation about COVID-19”. The mapping tool gathers data from the WHO, Centers for Disease Control, and the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China. The data on the map is available for download so as to facilitate access to researchers. 

In response to the outbreak, other calls for and initiatives on data sharing have surfaced. The Director-General of WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus invited health ministers of member states to improve data-sharing measures on COVID-19. Academia and the private sector are for their part involved in data sharing. Data has been shared through Github by Harvard Medical School, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation as well as Metabiota, a risk analysis company.

More data, however, does not necessarily mean more balanced and evidence-based policies. Very often, especially in dealing with risks, we miss the context and references. For example, are current actions of cancelling flights or in some cases boycotting Chinese goods proportional to the risk level? The answer is no. The COVID-19 death rate is estimated at 2% which is significantly lower in comparison to 14-15% in the case of SARS, 50% for ebola or 35% during the MERS epidemics. Data is not enough to make informed and reasonable policies in proportion to the current and potential risks. That said, AI may help put data in the right context of risks and societal priorities and in turn facilitate evidence-informed policy-making. 

The spread of COVID-19 is also having a major impact on the digital economy. While some predictions show that the effect of COVID-19 on the global economy will be worse than that of SARS, the digital economy is showing no sign of a slowdown. 

While traditional stock exchange markets have experienced a decline in part resulting from the outbreak, the value of the most popular cryptocurrency - Bitcoin has increased by 30% since December 2019. Today, the price of one bitcoin is estimated at USD 9,300. Some cryptocurrency and blockchain companies have promised to donate USD 1.44 million to the cause. 

The outbreak of the COVID-19 has led to a surge in teleworking. Fearing the spread of the virus, companies have requested employees to work from home. Measures were taken by companies including Alibaba and Tencent across China. The Japan Times went on to call COVID-19 the ‘world’s largest teleworking experiment’.  

E-commerce is also alive and kicking. Due to the shutdown of cities, people have resorted to purchasing their groceries and other necessities online. Some reports mention an increase in the business activity of e-commerce companies in China. 

One of the development issues most prominently associated with the COVID-19 crisis is access. Access to the Internet is equivalent to access to information, including that on the spread of disease. Moreover, access to digital technologies is indispensable to the efforts to address and mitigate the COVID-19. 

To illustrate, Switzerland has sought temporary access to a EU early-warning system for health crises to strengthen its defence capacities against COVID-19. The EU’s Early Warning and Response System (EWRS) is a digital platform connecting the European Commission, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and health authorities across the EU to manage serious cross-border threats.

Capacity development is another noteworthy issue. In an effort to improve the response to health emergencies, WHO has created OpenWHO, an interactive platform offering online courses that provide their users with the newest scientific and practical know-how. 

Misinformation about the COVID-19 outbreak is on the rise. Attempts to regulate virus-related digital content and halt such an ‘infodemic’ have been initiated by both the WHO and major tech companies such as Facebook and Google. 

The WHO, for instance, addresses popular myths related to the spread of the disease in its dedicated page on ‘myth busters’. The agency has also partnered with Pinterest, where users now get a link to the “myth busters” page whenever they search for the virus.

Google’s efforts to address fake news include the activation of an ‘SOS alert’ in search results for searches linked to the COVID-19 outbreak. This means that, when people search for disease-related information on Google, they will find at the top of the page the latest tweets from the WHO, links to advisory information and other relevant resources provided by WHO.

Facebook, on the other hand, attempts to curb misinformation by removing false assertions and virus-related conspiracy theories posted on its social media platforms. The company also works with third-party fact-checkers to review and debunk false content. When information is considered false, the company limits its spread on its platforms and instead shows people accurate information from these partners.

In response to the spread of COVID-19, authorities have taken a set of measures ranging from travel restrictions to city shut downs. Education is another area of social life that has been affected by the outbreak. 

Schools and universities across the world are resorting to online learning. In Italy, a number of schools have closed down since the outbreak and the authorities have resorted to different digital tools and platforms, such as Skype, Google Suite for Education and Office 365 Education to keep the classes going. The Ministry of Education has called on school directors to activate, for the duration of the suspension of teaching activities in schools, distance teaching methods, with particular attention to the specific needs of students with disabilities. 

In China, telecom carriers developed online learning solutions to enable students to continue their studies from home while regular classes have been suspended at schools. 

However, a number of schools are experiencing difficulty in providing online learning to their students for several reasons ranging from lack of necessary infrastructure, appropriate training for educators and general absence of digitalised teaching content. Furthermore, students lacking access to the broadband will not be able to join and participate in the new learning environment.

The spread of COVID-19 has also caused a stir in summit and conference circles. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced that its 67th Public Meeting will be held remotely - for the first time ever - as a result of the COVID-19. The spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group that gather over 10,000 representatives of governments, private sector, civil society and media will also be held virtually so as to avoid the spread of the disease. 

Other events, namely, tech summits have also been moved from onsite to the online environment. Reflecting the surge in the transition to online conferencing, the Adobe Summit, Google Cloud Next ‘20 and Okta are some of the events that cancelled onsite participation.