How Robots are Replacing and Helping Paramedics During Covid-19 Pandemic?
Published on : Saturday 04-04-2020
Since the Coronavirus Covid-19 outbreak has impacted global economies and caused millions of lives all over the world, governments, health workers and researchers are now tackling hard with this deadly virus to prevent this from spreading. In this way, the World Health Organisation has advised physical distancing for people around the world to put off community-level transmission of Covid-19. In a densely populated country like India which is the second world’s largest populated country, only second to China, maintaining social distancing is very difficult. Despite this, the number of coronavirus cases in the country is relatively low against countries like the US, Europe and China, the origin of the virus.
To respond to the Covid-19, several hospitals are now delivering foods, medicines and other essentials to isolated patients of the virus using automation technology like robots. Sawai Man Singh Government Hospital in Jaipur is one such hospital in India which is conducting a series of trials on a humanoid robot to check if it can be pressed into service for delivering medicines, and food to the Covid-19 patients admitted there. According to officials, this could potentially degrade the chances of the hospital staff contracting the infection.
The coronavirus outbreak has brought increased interest in technologies like robots, drones, artificial intelligence, and others as these technologies are even are able to assist in addressing shortages of medical staff within sectors especially in healthcare, manufacturing, and supply chains. However, as there is a need for social distancing to contain the spread of the virus, these technologies are playing an essential role in diagnosing and treating patients infected from Covid-19, barring doctors and nurses to be exposed to the disease.
These technologies are not only helping in delivering foods and medicine to patients but also disinfecting areas by spraying disinfectant chemicals. For instance, XAG, which develops and implants robots with aerial drones for agriculture, has now converted its agricultural units into disinfectant sprayers. The company has deployed over 2,600 drones in China, which it said is starting to recover.
A Danish-based company UVD Robots ApS, which develops mobile robots to disinfect hospitals and pharmacy industries, has been sending its disinfection robots to hospitals in China. On the other hand, Xenex Corp. has also deployed its disinfection robots to over 500 hospitals and is now sending robots to Italy, which has been most affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
In India, a Kerala-based startup Asimov Robotics has developed a three-wheeled robot that can assist patients who are admitted in isolation wards. This robot helps with things like food and medication, something that nurses and doctors have been doing so far, avoiding them at a larger risk of contracting the virus.
Over the last couple of years, it has been buzzing that robots can take or are taking up jobs that were done by humans earlier. But in the current scenario, machines have proved that they can be useful in a severe situation by freeing up hospital medical staff while confining the spread of the virus. As health care workers work closely with patients day and night that cause them of being exposed to the virus, robots are effective during the present circumstance as they can reduce human intervention at all levels.
So, as technology draws boon as well as bane for some context, it mostly delivers benefits to mankind. In the coming years, we believe technology like robots and AI will present an optimistic impact on human beings, assisting us in every situation like a present pandemic.