Recent Trends of Addressing COVID-19 Disease by AI/ML

1. Introduction

The life-threatening disease, COVID-19 has turned into an epidemic which was initiated in China's Wuhan province in December 2019 (Shereen, M. A., et al 2020). Coughing, sneezing are the primary reasons that can create a chain for this virus propagation among humans (Moghadas, S. M., et al 2020) . The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated the 30th of January, 2020 as a significant milestone; where COVID-19 was declared as a global public hazard (Gentile, I., & Abenavoli, L. 2020). The virus that produces COVID-19 is clinically known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 or SARS-CoV-2 because its genetic structure is almost similar to its predecessor SARS-CoV that broke down a few years back on a much smaller scale. Corona is a family of viruses that causes simple coughs and colds and it mostly affects animals. Few corona viruses have affected human beings in the recent past; they are Middle East Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus (SARS-CoV).(Song, Z., et al 2019). The disease was first uncovered in December 2019 hence the name COVID-19. Based on the reports of W.H.O., it is assumed that the virus is zoonotic in nature that is because the virus appeared due to contagion from animals to humans (Contini, C et al 2020⁵).

An important direction has been provided by these works (Andersen, K. G et al 2020 and Paraskevis, D., et al 2020) regarding the origin of the virus. The contamination started from bats and it jumped to the human body. Some theories suggest that the virus mutated from musk cats to the human body. It has been estimated by Day et al. that about 80% of the cases of the victims are asymptomatic where the sample size is 30. (Day, M. 2020). The spreading rate is quite alarming since these people can further spread the pathogen when exposed to gatherings. The lungs of some victims of low immunity are affected so badly that even death may occur. The epidemic is growing almost exponentially across the globe since the virus spreads by interaction between individuals through respiratory droplets from an individual if the person coughs. Some experts suggested that physical distancing is highly necessary since these droplets cannot travel more than 6 feet. (Kissler, S. M., et al 2020)

COVID-19 is characterized by some symptoms like loss of smell and taste, sore throat, headache, cough and cold, fever, fatigue, diarrhoea, respiratory problems like breathing difficulties, chest pain, and chronic cough and in some severe cases pneumonia may occur making some irreversible damage in lungs leading to multi-organ dysfunction syndrome leading to death (Daniel, J. 2020). It has been observed that so far the mortality rate of this pandemic is around 3% world-wide, but since the virus spreads so rapidly covering the face in public gatherings is highly necessary (Baud, D., et al 2020).

Coronaviruses are a wide group of retroviruses that often result in moderate to severe upper-respiratory tract inflammations, such as the cold or flu. Table 1 shows the family of corona viruses that affected human beings in the recent past. The genetic information of SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted by its RNA. The protein structure of the virus is such that it undergoes metamorphosis which creates a handful of strains. Usually, metals, UV radiation, and endogenous components of organisms influence updation. Each and every variant has a specific rate of transmission capability, severity, and even mortality based on the immune response and effectiveness of vaccines. It is highly important to gather data and predict the strains that are evolving. (Roy, B et al 2021). Another variant, popularly known as Omicron, replicated more slowly than the delta variant as analysed by Zhao, H and et al 2021. This statistical study has revealed that the omicron variant has lesser fusion activity and inefficient replication as compared with the delta variant.