The usage of Blockchain to Counter the Covid-19 pandemic
Coronavirus COVID-19 has influenced countries, populations and persons in several respects,
ranging from school shutdowns to physical condition insurance concerns, not undermining death.
As policymakers fight to solve such issues, a few blockchain-based technologies have arisen to
help them tackle the global health crisis. A blockchain is a crucial tool for developing an
effective open business model in healthcare that is focused on greater accuracy and confidence
because technology is a public leader that is safe to tamper with. Blockchain cannot prevent new
viruses themselves from emerging, but what it can do is to build the very first fast protective line
through an integrated device network whose main objective is to remain alert to disease
outbreaks. The use of blockchain-enabled systems can also help avoid such pandemics by
allowing initial detection of pandemics, fast monitoring of medication studies and impact
management of outbreaks and therapy[ CITATION Blo20 \l 1033 ].
A virus known as Covid-19 has reached the planet this year, causing the death of 1.4 million
people. This pandemic challenges governments' ability to cope with a global crisis. It can be
genuine to wonder how one can help us tackle a health problem like this one with the advent of
innovations every year. A promising one is Blockchain, a fairly new technology born in 2008
and used since for example, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum are built upon technology.
A decentralized digital transaction record is important or is often referred to as a decentralized
leader. Each transaction (or data) has been documented in a block and the precedent forms a
chain for every block. This database is shared and open to anyone on computers around the
world. The latest pandemic at Covid-19 demonstrated the importance of digital instruments to
address widespread urgent needs and rapid global intervention. Blockchain technology can
monitor the time of the patient effectively and provide real-time data and efforts on the affected
areas. It is also useful for controlling the movement of individuals within a virus-free region.
Government and health organizations, via blockchain technology, can track potential patients at
any point with reliability and precision. Information regarding secure areas such as population,
location and actual coronaviral outbreak is documented using a block chain in which the
outbreak notifications may be stored at any time by each block.
Many steps have been taken to counter COVID-19 19 because it has caused a serious damage to
the entire World. Another big concern is the urgent need to create more successful diagnoses,
Vaccinations and tailored interventions, misinformation and conspiratorial theories spread by
social networking, multiple limits when accessing the resources when r are being achieved
through monitoring a vast majority of contagious patients to avoid this epidemic.
Also, in modern years, the planet has seen nothing such as the COVID 19 pandemic. We need to
take a closer look at and build on the reporting infrastructure, technologies and legislation that
are available for communicable diseases so that we do not have to face another pandemic such as
this.
Blockchain technology allows patients to assign medical information access rules for example,
allowing individual researchers for a limited period to access parts of their data. Patients may use
blockchain technology to connect to other hospitals and collect their medical data automatically.
Instead of being completed Blockchain technology has continuously developed and various
future challenges in biomedical and medical applications. Openness and confidentiality are the
first challenge. On a blockchain network everyone can see everything. Many assume that
medical information itself is kept off-chain and the hash of the label information only is kept in a
blockchain[ CITATION Yoo19 \l 1033 ].
The technology of Blockchain allows digital transactions to be distributed, encrypted, and
secured. In many places, computer technology is expected to revolutionize, particularly when
centralization is unnatural, and privacy is important. The use of a blockchain network on citizens'
mobile devices can be used globally to monitor the spread of coronavirus infection. Preserving
patient knowledge is one of the key potentials of blockchain technology. It will simplify the fast
monitoring of drug research and transparently document and control all fund-raising activities
and donations.
The decentralization feature of Blockchain eliminates the need for outsiders, which can
dramatically reduce changes in data and fabricated news and improve trustworthiness of data for
the population and health care experts. False data leads to instability and harm to the economy
and to psychological distress. Saving news and information in a blockchain database thus
prevents it from being modified and makes it traceable, making it easier to avoid false
information and data. Blockchain technology offers an effective coronavirus framework for data
that is accurate, precise, flawless, and transparent across such a network. Consequently,
governments can better update the status of coronavirus for enhanced preparation and control,
such as outbreak forecasting, territorial isolation and the monitoring of infection spread. In
addition, disinformation and spamming of false news was constantly revealed to the public. The
challenges posed by central data structures can be eliminated by blockchain technology. It
provides immutability and data source when device failure is eliminated. Therefore in a few
short clicks with the blockchain data tracker, it is secure and assured to get information in real
time concerning the COVID-19 virus. Any user with Internet access can. [ CITATION Dou201 \l
1033 ].
Cross-country data-sharing networks with Blockchain power can be built to deal with processes
of immigration and emigration smarter. Various integral features such as immutableness, access
self-control, non-rejection, auditability, and origin of blockchain systems with strict smart
contracts are essential for these applications. These important characteristics can contribute to a
healthy, decentralized, collaborative ecosystem of immigration. Soon, we can see countries
building blockchain-based immigration systems of consortium types which connect every control
point for immigration. Such systems in other countries would have well-defined interoperability
with similar systems[CITATION Ans20 \l 1033 ].
The balance between data collection and privacy assurance needs to be achieved in these difficult
times. In the collection and analysis of patient data, Blockchain can be used to track movements
of patients to ensure the required social distancing criteria while simultaneously safeguarding
their identity. No focus power is provided, and customers are regulated on a blockchain platform.
You may share data which are essential for the relief of coronaviruses while protecting your
privacy and identity. Furthermore, governments and healthcare groups may increase data
collection by monitoring coronaviruses and consumers may be assured not to be revealed or
shared with each other. For COVID-19 contact monitoring using Bluetooth a group of data
security experts across Europe developed a blockchain-based platform. To make blockchain
technology a viable business for organizations/enterprises concerned with its use, private data
should be saved off-chain. Although centralized off-chain storage is feasible it is preferred to use
distributed off chain storage to ensure data availability and privacy. Furthermore, a different
security level/layer may be employed, depending on the application situation, to preserve off-line
storage privacy. Improving data protection, including homomorphic encryption (ABE) and
attribute-based encryption, can be exploited to increase privacy, such as confidentiality by
drafting & mixing and privacy enhancement technologies (PET). [ CITATION Dou201 \l 1033 ].
The following limitations are observed for Block chain technology, for instance:
(i) The consumption of electricity is enormous since each transaction needs strong
hardware capital.
(ii) The main constraint on this technology is scalability. This is because confirmation
takes some time because most nodes approve transactions.
(iii) Another drawback of this technology is the difficulty of blockchain and the need
of a wide network of users.
(iv) Preserving the privacy of this technology is another significant challenge.
In the battle against the COVID-19pandemic, global data synchronization is a key element.
Important information such as number of patients involved, effective cases, crucial cases,
patients recovered, deaths and so on must be shared in real-time to build public knowledge,
promote timely preventive intervention and foresee future trends. Nonetheless, since digital
information tends to be vulnerable to security attacks, issues such as data ownership misuse,
absence of means for verification of data handling, use of the single point of attack centralized
data store, and insufficient data exchange transparency represent technical challenges to the fight
against COVID-19. Each organization's central role or body is responsible for its overall smooth
running and is responsible for legal problems. Possible Solution: Court and legal structures must
create a new legitimate structure and appropriate managerial processes for an effective
emergence and broad adaptation of innovative services based on blockchain. This will make it
possible for blockchain innovations to be incorporated seamlessly with public/governmental
organizations. It does not entirely replace current public services through Blockchain technology
—it adds and makes them more effective. There are, however, numerous types of attacks which
may be mounted through wallet hijacking, crypto-stealing malware, and transaction liability on
blockchain applications. Such attacks are becoming more and more common as they are simple
to execute because they do not handle protected blockchain infrastructure directly. These attacks
aim at modifying transaction details at the entry point itself to ensure that the blockchain has an
immutable confirmation of wrong and malicious transactions. Furthermore, attacks to change the
blockchain could become possible with technological developments such as quantum computing.
In future, blockchain will need to be revamped or updated progressively if quantum computing
proves to be superiority over high-end application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) computing.
In this COVID-19 pandemic the most critical issue is the data that is accessed, stored, and
exchanged as a distributed database in the blockchain network. Since there are many policy and
legislation challenges, different parties must address the new health policies, data allocation,
digital health services policies and issues associated with digital variation, digital network
connectiveness and divide, including international healthcare organizations, country leaders and
international policy makers [CITATION Ans20 \l 1033 ].
The number of transactions increases daily, and the blockchain network traffic gets bulky. All
authenticated transactions must be stored in every node in the blockchain and this becomes a
challenge since a block size and interval constraint is used to construct a new block. Actual
blockchain systems process only a few transactions per second, which is problematic because it
is possible to process millions of transactions in real time. Because of the restricted size of the
block, small transactions are delayed because miners tend to confirm high-trading transactions.
Blockchain is exposed to attacks by greedy miners even though the network is cheated only by a
small amount of hazing strength. The tactic used by egoistic miners is to develop a private sector
without broadcasting by mining blocks, and to only publish the private network when it is
retentive than the existing public network. In the meantime, honest miners are wasting their
money on mining a useless branch of this chain without competing. This will raise the profits of
greedy miners[ CITATION Dou201 \l 1033 ].
Blockchain technology is very critical for tackling with the COVID-19 pandemic. Blockchain
technology plays a vital role in charge of the spread of this pandemic. This technology will
contribute through better solutions, brownfield monitoring, consumer privacy security, the
efficiency of the medical supply chain, the tracking of donations and secure daily operations
during the pandemic crisis. Blockchain technology can be used to minimize network latencies in
a protected environment in which sensitive information can be stored and transmitted.
Blockchain technology can easily deal with fatal pandemics such as coronaviruses in the ultimate
combination of other emergent technologies, including AI which is called artificial intelligence,
big data, and cloud computing. We can exchange transactions/information with Blockchain, in
real time, as nodes in the chain between related parties, in a protected and unchanged manner. If
there was one blockchain where the WHO the ministry of health of every country and even
relevant national nodal hospitals were linked, exchanging real time information, about any new
diseases that could be transmitted, the world would then have risen much sooner. It could have
been necessary to see travel limits earlier and social distancing enforced sooner, quarantining
measures sooner. And it should have affected less nations. Each country's work to tackle this
pandemic now will have been limited to fewer and much smaller countries. The use of
Blockchain for the early exchange of knowledge might have saved the world a lot of suffering.
References
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