Drones may soon help de-escalate the ongoing Coronavirus epidemic. Dubbed as Pandemic Drones, these flying devices offer a variety of services that make life easier in the midst of the disease outbreak.
Several cities (and countries even) worldwide have started utilizing drones more and more.
Advantages against the Pandemic
These pandemic drones have a few tools at hand to ensure safer testing procedures. In Australia, software for drones may soon be tested in the field. These programs can help create a targeted approach against the Coronavirus, such as symptom detection and basic assessment of patients. They hope to perfect their heartbeat-detecting program, which can check heartrate from people from afar.
In a previous article, we mentioned cities around the world attempting to use drones to detect fever amongst a crowd. Drones, armed with cameras, can be programmed to check temperatures from subjects at a distance. Not only is this more sanitary, this setup can also cover a lot more ground. Using similar techniques, drones can also detect signs of Coronavirus infection, such as the physical act of coughing.
Another article also talks about how drones help even without all these complicated hardware available. Their basic job of delivering goods from one point to another is more important than ever in today’s climate.
Limitations and Potential Issues
The perks offered by these pandemic drones are plentiful. However, they still come with downsides – some of which may be too significant to ignore. The most glaring downside is the availability.
While drones are becoming more and more affordable, plenty of places still cannot afford a fleet of them for tests. Many places even lack basic medical supplies such as masks and disinfectants. Another issue would be the scope of the drones. A drone can potentially assess a small area’s health status by its lonesome. For larger cities and population centers however, it can be a bit trickier.
