The Internet of Things (IoT) as Used by Smart Cities in Response to COVID-19

Introduction

The current pandemic caused by COVID-19 is the most severe global health issue since the 1918 influenza pandemic. Since its emergence, researchers have been working feverishly to leverage a wide range of technologies to tackle the threat posed by the disease. In this regard, Internet of Things (IoT) technology has been formulated as one of the forerunners in such regions as Dubai and Singapore. Recently, IoT-enabled devices have been launched to reduce the spreading of COVID-19 virus through early detection, patient monitoring, and following prescribed protocols after patient recovery (Ratcliffe, 2020). Notably, IoT has revolutionized new research subjects related to health care systems and management.

IoT has transform patient-related services from a traditional to a more tailored system, thus, making it easier to diagnose, treat, and track infection. With the emergence of Influenza pandemic in 1918, such new policies as the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) platform were enacted and have been used since the emergence of COVID-19. According to Wang et al. (2020), the policy has been used by the smart cities in the rapid sharing of vital information regarding the spread of COVID-19.

Therefore, beyond the concepts of awareness and quick rejoinder such cases in the future, COVID-19 pandemics indicate that there is a need for collaborative strategies in the maximization of public safety using the technological advancement as provided by the smart cities. This paper compares and contrasts the uses of IoT-based equipment in Singapore and Dubai for COVID-19 control and cross-examines the modern IoT-based solutions in the two smart cities.

Research Objectives

Based on the aspects mentioned above, this research paper will work to give assertions to the following:

• COVID-19 monitoring and control: Prospective actions of the two smart cities in terms of IoT-based technologies
• Examine the most up-to-date designs, infrastructure, presentations, or industrialized IoT-based controls in both cities in tackling COVID-19 spread.

Research Questions

With the sudden emergence of the deadly Coronavirus disease, there has been a continued impasse in the potential steps, which developed countries and cities have taken in enhancing technology to curb the spread of the virus. This paper gives answers to the following questions:

1. What is the essence of the Internet of Things in the fight against Coronavirus Disease?
2. What are some of the IoT-linked devices and platforms that have been fostered and established to be effective in both Dubai and Singapore?
3. Is there a terrain green future for the mentioned platforms in case of any future emergence of similar virus?
4. Between the two smart intelligent cities, which one has proved to better curb the high infection rates related to the new COVID-19 virus in terms of IoT.

Limitations of the Research

This study is based majorly on the Internet to draw information and establish analysis on IoT for the smart cities. The following limitations are based on the research being entirely dependent on the Internet.

1. Because of lockdown, curfew, and social distance policy enactment, strategies required to curb the spread of the virus, online questionnaires will be used on a random basis. However, responses in online questionnaires might not be validated as unintended respondents who might choose to give false information might receive some of the questionnaires.
2. The online respondents who might be genuinely ready to provide information may be concerned with their online securities especially in the era of cyber security threats.
3. Being the virus intrusion period, the information on the major technological advances in both cities may not give long-term results as new technologies are continually developed in response to the pandemic.

Definitions of Terms

In order to deliver valid and efficient information in this study, several terms must be effectively defined, which includes:

• Internet of Things (IoT) – is a network of interconnected devices that can capture and transmit data without the need for human interaction
• Internet of Things Platform – Is a collection of components that enable developers to distribute applications, collect data remotely, secure connectivity, and manage sensors. IoT platforms manage device communication and allow developers to create new mobile software applications.
• Internet of Things linked devices – An IoT device is any entity that can be linked to the internet for transmitting information or figures after data processing.

Preliminary Review of Related Literature

Theme 1: Problem Definition

The COVID-19 pandemic is a relatively new occurrence, with a limited scientific research. According to Das and Zhang (2020), such cities express two complementary frames of strategies at the time of a global challenge; preparedness and use of IoTs for health improvements. This has been facilitated by the launch of the UAE Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (AI), where the government-led initiative was mandated to include AI such as IoT in health (Bardawil, 2020). This move was supported by the appointment of the Minister for AI accountable for UAE’s adoption of the IoT for future health-related preparedness (Bardawil, 2020). However, such advancements can only be realized if various smart cities in UAE directed their standardized strategies and protocols that facilitate smooth communication

The effective communication between IoT devices as indicated in AI guidelines is important in curbing the spread of the virus. IoT devices should be made to support open protocols and the service providers should ascertain data integrity at this time of cyber security threats (Weber and Podnar Žarko, 2019). However, this has been a challenge as the smart cities in question only use IoT devices whose proprietary protocols are only known to the service providers, thus creating data fragmentation (Sonn & Lee, 2020; Söderström, 2020). Therefore, with a gap in knowledge regarding the emerging trends and urban health concerning data, the decision to fight the pandemic is limited, thus compromising the socioeconomic integrity of the smart cities.

Theme 2: Preliminary list of Issues and Sub-issues

COVID-19 and its management have posed several issues in both the healthcare systems and government operations. As such, organizations have been forced to familiarize with “business as usual”, though with collaborative and collective intelligence. According to Costa (2021), an innovative society entails such cities that experience fast adaptations based on the new emerging technological advancements. Data mining for policymaking purposes is a feature of high-tech cities, which has had a particular significance in the event of a pandemic (Wong, Leo, & Tan, 2020). In essence, data supervision drives the swiftness at which governments respond to challenges (Yeo, 2020). In this sense, data are structures that can promote cross-sector integration, even if it is forced and imposed on people.

Theme 3: Guidelines and principles elements comparison

The solution to the spread of the COVID-19 virus and the management of COVID-19 patients takes four forms:

1. Situational awareness, through which government officials and the general public gain an understanding of patterns based on previously overlooked or invisible data.
2. A cause-and-effect relationship between the steps taken, in a gauge that reveals which variables make a difference and which cause problems.
3. Predictability, made possible by the real-time aspect of Big Data, which helps identify the behavior, opportunities, risks, and demands.
4. Impact evaluation, which enables the observation of where the barriers to action performance.

Specifically, Sim and Lim (2020) asserts that the scale of intelligent cities’ activities in the face of the pandemic can be seen in the use of artificial intelligence for monitoring, the use of drones for mobility and surveillance, research technologies, and emerging platforms that help virtual communication.

Research Design, Method, and Methodology

Being a benchmark between the two intelligent cities dealing with COVID 19, a survey was conducted in Singapore and Dubai to outline the landscape of digital tooling used to respond from the public administrations in both cities to the pandemic situation (Costa et al., 2021). The cities’ population element was considered in the selection process, based on projections from the American Institute of Geography and Statistics for 2019 (IBGE). The decision to choose the most significant cities was based on research by Hasija (2020), Ong (2020), and Tang (2020), which states that urban areas may cause territorial management problems – indicating, for this analysis, the representativeness of the cities chosen. As a result, researching metropolises with higher population densities is intended to provide a panoramic and macro-scale understanding of how city administrations cope with pandemic situations.

Between 1st and 6th, 2021, data was gathered by consulting four sources in order of priority: media outlets, city hall social media, city hall websites, and the general public (based on questionnaires questions formulated and approved by course instructor). The quest for initiatives using digital tooling was conducted using a variety of keywords, including “name of the city,” “COVID-19,” “technology,” “digital,” “virtual,” and “smart city,” which were also checked for in their collective forms and integrated using Boolean logic. Only the publicly announced results by the city hall and those that required public administration decision-making were chosen.

The search results – mostly publications – were fed into a spreadsheet, which resulted in a saturation of incidents and various IoT with regards to Singapore and Dubai. The initiatives were organized into categories in the spreadsheet based on their goals for using the digital tool. This classification yielded a keyword for each occurrence, resulting in categorizing of two cities: Dubai and Singapore among the many technologically advanced cities in UAE. The attribution of categories emerged from the description of the tech countries.

Ethical Considerations

During the research, the essential information collection center for various research objectives were sort upon approval of the course instructor and program coordinator. The prior to communicating the questionnaires, an approval was sort from the university dean of students and course coordinator.

Results

According to the findings, both cities have adopted digital tooling. In this situation, the possibility of exaggeration, due to the absence or under-notification of cases, even though the interventions were not publicized in the researched media, is worth noticing. A total of 198 different digital strategies have been identified, with many being grouped in some cities. Discussed below are various findings of the enhanced technologies in the two smart cities.

Singapore

From the 2020 index assessment of 109 smart cities, for the second year in a row, Singapore has topped a global smart city ranking, because of its ability to use technology in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Singapore’s Covid-19 response and the Government’s work more generally, has been focused on technology. Biomedical research has been crucial in understanding genomes and disease trends and developing tests and therapies. According to Sim and Lim (2020) and Kuzmanna (2020), contact tracing for COVID-19 was initially manual and time-consuming, creating a need for more advanced technology. The disease had a much broader population to be traced because of its quick spreading, thus, necessitated the quarantining of close contacts.

Singapore have implemented three major technology platforms for dealing with COVID 19, namely the Bluetooth-based, open-source Trace-Together app and token, the check-in system Safe-Entry, and VISION, which incorporated existing Government databases to issue quarantine notices quickly. However, the stand out technology was the use of SwabBot, a robot with features for faster and comfortable COVID-19 swabbing. The robot is known for its ability to reduce the healthcare practitioners’ risk of contracting the virus. Furthermore, preliminary reports suggest that the robot is safe, quicker, and comfortable in performing nasal swabs compared to the manual method used by humans.

Dubai

Dubai has been in partnership with other smart cities in UAE in the use of technology as a successful response to the coronavirus pandemic. Collection of items that “basically entertained” had become essential to life itself while explaining how technology has been at the core of the UAE’s emergency response. “What I extracted from media sources in his speech were that the pandemic had made Dubai realized how gadgets could turn into essential materials in reducing the spread of the deadly disease. With recent events, it is evident how all of the devices and electronics turned into structures to handle society and helped get out of the problem and monitor the spread of COVID-19.

The comparison of Technological Enhancement between Dubai and Singapore

In Dubai, there exists a common app known as the ALHOSN UAE app. Individuals in Dubai access COVID-19 test results on their smartphones through the ALHOSN UAE app, the official integrated digital platform for COVID-19 tests in the UAE (Wong et al., 2020, p.1243). It can also tell if the user has been near people who have been infected with the COVID-19 virus, as long as they have the same app installed on their phones. After the user triggers his phone’s Bluetooth feature, the user’s phone can be detected. Any user who installs the app will receive a unique QR code containing health-related information. The data in the app is encrypted and remains on the user’s computer. The competent health authorities may use this information to recognize individuals who may spread the virus and be at risk of contracting it. They will then interact with the people who are in danger and re-test them.

In Singapore, a standard application known as the Trace-Together app is used. The app has a feature for scanning Safe-Entry QR codes, and the tokens have a QR code with the same functionality (Sim & Lim, 2020). In response to the application, Singapore created a policy where cinemas were all required to use Trace-Together. The Trace-Together app and token connect with other Trace-Together apps or tokens nearby by exchanging short-range Bluetooth signals.

Fast contact tracing is possible because of the proximity data, which is encrypted and stored for 25 days before being automatically deleted. Another IoT device that has been introduced in the city is the use of a robot known as SwabBot. SwabBot works by automating the nasal swabs required by the COVID-19 technicians and clinicians for the diagnosis of COVID-19. In this case, the robot works by reducing the swabber’s chances of getting exposed to the Corona virus. Therefore, SwabBot is an essential device that does not need trained personnel, yet is capable of standardizing the consistency of all swabs taken in the shortest time possible.

Timelines

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