COVID-19

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is a betacoronavirus, just like MERS-CoV which produced the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the SARS-CoV. The SARS-CoV-2 causes the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and has led to a worldwide lockdown. Demanding international and transnational cooperation efforts to control the spread of the virus and find possible drug combinations as well as to develop a vaccine.

Open-source cooperation, where data, algorithms and other technological solutions to fight against SARS-CoV-2, as well as deal with the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, becomes a critical driving factor for an effective crisis response. Platform-based power linked to the ability of people to cooperate with each other, share data, algorithms, ideas and solutions may be a marker of a new kind of strategic response, where non-governmental global(ized) platforms and government platforms play a critical role, in this dynamics, data science and computing platforms can help mobilize and enhance large-scale cooperative efforts of development of technological solutions for crisis response at a fast pace, where code corroboration, data revision and new technological solutions are shared at a pace that is faster than the traditional academic publication cycle.

In this context, machine learning can lead to augmented intelligence technological solutions that may help in the fight against SARS-CoV-2. For the A.I. for risk analytics project, we are currently developing machine learning applications to COVID-19 profiling and prediction data, applications that can be expanded for other diseases and biosecurity problems.

The first result of this research is the COVID-19 Prediction Engine, available at https://sites.google.com/view/ai-for-risk-analytics/covid-19-prediction-engine, introduced in the article:

Gonçalves, C.P. (2020). "A.I. System to Predict COVID-19 Active Cases and Hospitalizations" . https://www.academia.edu/44033596/A_I_System_to_Predict_COVID_19_Active_Cases_and_Hospitalizations.