PREFACE on the Special Issue 'Technologies for Fighting COVID-19'

IoT and Deep Learning Based Approach for Rapid Screening and Face Mask Detection for Infection Spread Control of COVID-19

The spread of COVID-19 has been taken on pandemic magnitudes and has already spread over 200 countries in a few months. In this time of emergency of COVID-19, especially when there is still a need to follow the precautions and developed vaccines are not available to all the developing countries in the first phase of vaccine distribution, the virus is spreading rapidly through direct and indirect contacts. The World Health Organization (WHO) provides the standard recommendations on preventing the spread of COVID-19 and the importance of face masks for protection from the virus. The excessive use of manual disinfection systems has also become a source of infection. That is why this research aims to design and develop a low-cost, rapid, scalable, and effective virus spread control and screening system to minimize the chances and risk of spread of COVID-19. We proposed an IoT-based Smart Screening and Disinfection Walkthrough Gate (SSDWG) for all public places entrance. The SSDWG is designed to do rapid screening, including temperature measuring using a contact-free sensor and storing the record of the suspected individual for further control and monitoring. Our proposed IoT-based screening system also implemented real-time deep learning models for face mask detection and classification. This module classified individuals who wear the face mask properly, improperly, and without a face mask using VGG-16, MobileNetV2, Inception v3, ResNet-50, and CNN using a transfer learning approach. We achieved the highest accuracy of 99.81% while using VGG-16 and the second highest accuracy of 99.6% using MobileNetV2 in the mask detection and classification module. We also implemented classification to classify the types of face masks worn by the individuals, either N-95 or surgical masks. We also compared the results of our proposed system with state-of-the-art methods, and we highly suggested that our system could be used to prevent the spread of local transmission and reduce the chances of human carriers of COVID-19.

Technological advancement in the era of COVID-19

Regional and local governments worldwide are working tirelessly toward effective ways of addressing the COVID-19 crisis. During this time, the government has had to ensure that they provide full usage of technological means to confront the pandemic and discourse a wide range of COVID-19 related problems. Herein, this article will discuss the application of technical means and the advancement of technology in different sectors as a consequence of the COVID-19 crisis. Further, it highlights how government and health organizations have introduced new policies intending to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus. These new policies, such as lockdowns and social distancing measures, have resulted in technological advancement and new means of interaction with government, businesses, and citizens. Such changes include increased online shopping, as well as robotic delivery systems, the introduction of digital as well as contactless payment systems, remote working, the role of technology in distance learning, Telehealth, 3D Printing, and online entertainment. These technological advancements have been embraced all the way during this pandemic by a few countries around the world, with its limitation in some underdeveloped and developing countries.