An automated guide to COVID-19 and future pandemic prevention and management

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, we present CoFighter, a mobile application for prevention and management of COVID-19 and other related pandemics in the globalized world. We took advantage of the proliferation of mobile smart devices in every home to design and implement an Android application for COVID-19 and similar pandemics. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, there has been even more serious pressures on governments and health institutions on the best way to provide appropriate and reliable guide to individuals on how to contain the virus and similar pandemics in the future. Citizens have not been adequately informed of the various provisions and guides by their governments and the wide usage of social media had led to the spread of fake news, misinformation and conspiracy theories. It therefore becomes very necessary to develop a dynamic information repository in the form of a mobile application to help combat the spread of any pandemic whenever the need arises. The application provides information on COVID-19, vaccine challenges, prevention guides and cases management and timely updates to keep citizens properly and adequately informed. It makes provision for future similar pandemics that could throw the world into chaos as the CORONA virus did in 2019. The weaknesses and challenges observed in most popularly existing COVID-19 applications were highlighted and implemented in CoFighter. CoFighter provides users, governments and health workers with a platform not only to manage COVID-19 and other similar pandemics in the future, but also helps frontline health workers to better manage the pandemics. The developed application runs on an Android device with Android version 4.2 or higher and can be used not only to manage COVID-19 pandemic, but also to manage economic crisis and similar future pandemics. CoFighter is available via the Repository: https://github.com/OkeyIsOkay/CoFighter-Project.