Volume 2, Issue 3 (2023) – 5 articles
Cover Picture:
view this paper During the past three years, tremendous efforts have been made to tackle the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis, including centralized quarantine, compulsory testing, and sweeping lockdowns. The measures have taken effect, but have caused a huge burden on healthcare systems and significant disruption to global economies on an unprecedented scale. Recently, some countries and regions have observed signs of the pandemic resurgence. To better handle the resurgence in the post-COVID era and future pandemics, an immediate revolution of the precise and rapid responding system capable of early detection is needed. Based on a comprehensive review, this article summarizes the enabling wearable devices in physiological monitoring and biomolecular diagnosis, highlights their potential contributions to the detection and management of COVID-19, as well as its long-term effects, and suggests a wearable sensing-based system to avoid future pandemics. Wearable devices, in conjunction with mobile health (mHealth) technologies, provide a novel way to track and monitor diseases through continuous physiological, physical, and biomolecular sensing. Augmented by artificial intelligence (AI), especially the emerging Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) algorithms, patients could potentially be identified before they become symptomatic. By combining contact tracing and effective quarantine, it is possible to arrest the spread of the disease and control its emergence at an early stage. Furthermore, with minor refinements, the proposed response system holds the potential for extended use beyond COVID-19, particularly in addressing cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) during both outbreaks and non-pandemic scenarios. By implementing this groundbreaking approach, there exist valuable prospects to transform the current healthcare paradigm and drive significant advancements in disease prevention, detection, and management.
