All across the world, you hear about countries struggling to maintain supplies in testing kits, hospital beds, and other equipment for coronavirus disease patients. Some countries, even first world ones, are overwhelmed by the sheer number of patients going into hospitals, that some patients are not properly taken care of and just pass away.
Then there are countries like Qatar who have responded swiftly and are prepared for any wave of infections. The country has also introduced several best practices to keep its citizens safe from getting the disease. All the efforts of the government have paid off as Qatar now has one of the world’s lowest mortality rates due to COVID-19.
Qatar’s Health Care System Helps Most COVID-19 Patients Survive
If you’ve missed QCAI’s “Data Exploration and Visualization for #COVIDー19 Data” lecture, it’s now online:https://t.co/TTc8tgECQE@HBKU @QF
— QCRI (@QatarComputing) April 29, 2020
According to an expert in artificial intelligence, Qatar’s mortality rate is one of the lowest in the world. Among GCC countries, Qatar places second highest in number of cases, which now stands at 11,921. However, out of this number, there are 10 recorded deaths. Based on these numbers, Qatar’s mortality rate is at 0.08 percent, much lower than the global average of around seven percent.
Dr. Nan Tang, the AI expert from Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), of the Hamad Bin Khalifa University, says that this low mortality rate has a lot to do with Qatar’s excellent health care system. Aside from the low death rate, another consequence of great healthcare is the fact that more than 1,000 patients have already recovered from the disease.
What Artificial Intelligence is Teaching Us About COVID-19
Join us tomorrow at 10am GMT+3 for the online lecture “Meta Research of #COVIDー19 Literature” by Dr. Mourad Ouzzani and Hossam Hammady, who will give an overview of @rayyanapp features, how it was created, and steps on screening large sets of articles. https://t.co/NUIfbJaj1v
— QCRI (@QatarComputing) April 29, 2020
Dr. Tang shared the following insights by analyzing big data about the latest COVID-19 numbers.
1. Optimistically speaking, the COVID-19 cases could peak in the next two weeks and then flatten.
2. Pessimistically though, COVID-19 can peak in August this year before it starts flattening.
3. The true projection can be anywhere in the middle of these two possibilities, and we’ll just have to wait to find out.
4. The epidemic will most likely have a resurgence unless we find a vaccine. That’s based on what we’ve learned from past epidemics in the world’s history.
When we look at examples in history, we find that the pandemic back in 2018 had three waves, and the succeeding two were deadlier than the first one.
5. The number of COVID-19 cases around the world is growing exponentially but this will definitely stop soon.
6. Social distancing, although one of the oldest tricks in the book in terms of slowing down pandemics, is still the best strategy right now.
We can look at the example of Italy to see how effective social distancing is. Italy started with a spread of 4.8 percent. After 45 days of social distancing, the number went down to 1.5 percent. After 90 days, that number is now 0.5 percent.
7. COVID-19 could potentially spread faster in the winter than during the summer. In fact, some independent studies have shown that hot weather weakens the coronavirus.
8. Right now, what the world truly needs is an effective vaccine.
To see an end to this pandemic, we need to obediently follow the guidelines and laws set by the government. In the case of this report, even artificial intelligence and big data science agrees that social distancing is the best strategy for preventing the spread of infections.