The start of 2020 has been one for the history books. COVID-19, or the novel Coronavirus Disease, has rapidly infiltrated almost every country. In response, the global economy has seemingly come to a halt as many countries have shut down non-essential business operations to prevent the spread of the disease.
The effects of COVID-19 expand far
beyond health issues.
While
COVID’s impact on our immune system is no doubt frightening, the economic
implications of the necessary shutdowns will likely continue long after the
disease is under control.
Governments are launching
unprecedented levels of stimulus.
To
counteract the economic blow of business shutdowns, governments are providing
previously unseen amounts of stimulus to both citizens and businesses alike.
Trillions of dollars in the form of grants, loans, tax deferrals, and other
types of relief are entering the worldwide economy to keep it afloat.
Unfortunately, unemployment rates are
skyrocketing, as well.
While the trillions of dollars in coronavirus relief may be helping some businesses, it hasn’t been enough to put a cap on unemployment. Millions around the world have been laid off, furloughed, or have had their hours cut due to COVID closures.
So far, stimulus packages have slowed the rate of unemployment growth in the European Union as well as the United Kingdom. Still, experts predict that the hold-off is only temporary. Consulting firm McKinsey warns that one in four European jobs risk some type of COVID-related hours cut.
How will this situation shake out for digital assets?
With such drastic changes to the global economic system, it’s only natural to assume that digital assets will feel an impact, as well. Digital assets exist to fill the gaps in and solve the problems of the traditional financial markets. In times of economic uncertainty, we’d expect adoption to increase.
Blockchain technology to combat COVID-19 pandemic
The severity
of COVID-19 was so tremendous that the World Health Organization (WHO) had to
declare it as a pandemic within a month of its full-scale expansion. The
greatest challenge most governments are suffering from is the lack of a precise
mechanism to detect the newly infected cases and predict coronavirus infection
risk. So, we need a technology-empowered solution to fight during this COVID-19
crisis. The various features of blockchain technology, such as
decentralization, transparency, and immutability, can help control this pandemic
by early detection of outbreaks, fast-tracking drug delivery, and protecting
user privacy during treatment.
Blockchain
technology enables distributed, encrypted, and secure logging of digital
transactions. It is expected to revolutionize computing in several areas,
mainly where centralization is unnatural and privacy is essential. It can be
leveraged globally to track the spread of coronavirus infection by deploying a
blockchain network on citizens’ mobile devices. One of the major potentials of
blockchain technology is to preserve patient information. It can simplify the
fast-tracking of drug trials and record and track all fundraising activities
and donations transparently.
Main applications of blockchain
technology in the COVID-19 pandemic
·
Disease
control
·
Traceability
·
Bolstering
supply chain of medical parts during this crisis
·
Improving
transparency during the treatment of infected patients
·
Tracking
of healthcare instruments
·
Improving
the recovery of infected patients
·
Storage
and transfer of treatment-related information
·
Better
healthcare protection
· Effective healthcare management during the crisis
The critical role of blockchain technology is to help control the spread of this pandemic. This technology can help during this pandemic crisis by providing improved solutions, outbreak tracking, and user privacy protection, the performance of the medical supply chain, donation tracking, and safe day-to-day operations. Blockchain technology should be applied in such a way that network latency can be reduced with a secure environment for storing and transmission of critical information. The ultimate combination of blockchain technology with other emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data, and Cloud computing, can effectively handle deadly pandemics like coronavirus.
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