Controlling the spread of infectious diseases, such as the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, is one of the most challenging problems for human civilization. The world is more populous and connected than ever before, and therefore, the rate of contagion for such diseases often becomes stupendous. The development and distribution of testing kits cannot keep up with the demand, making it impossible to test everyone. The next best option is to identify and isolate the people who come in close contact with an infected person. However, this apparently simple process, commonly known as - contact tracing, suffers from two major pitfalls: the requirement of a large amount of manpower to track the infected individuals manually and the breach in privacy and security while automating the process. Here, we propose a Bluetooth based contact tracing hardware with anonymous IDs to solve both the drawbacks of the existing approaches. The hardware will be a wearable device that every user can carry conveniently. This device will measure the distance between two users and exchange the IDs anonymously in the case of a close encounter. The anonymous IDs stored in the device of any newly infected individual will be used to trace the risky contacts and the status of the IDs will be updated consequently by authorized personnel. To demonstrate the concept, we simulate the working procedure and highlight the effectiveness of our technique to curb the spread of any contagious disease.
翻译:控制传染病的传播,例如正在发生的SARS-CoV-2大流行,是人类文明面临的最棘手问题之一。世界比以往人口更多,而且与人类文明的联系比以往更加密切,因此,这种疾病的传染率往往变得惊人。研制和分发测试工具包无法跟上需求,无法对每个人进行测试。下一个最佳选择是识别和隔离与感染者密切接触的人。然而,这个显然简单的过程,通常称为接触追踪,有两大缺陷:需要大量人力来人工追踪感染者,在过程自动化时,需要大量人力来追踪隐私和安全的漏洞。在这里,我们提议用蓝牙追踪接触硬件,使用匿名识别码来解决现有方法的缺陷。这些硬件将是每个使用者可以方便携带的耗尽性装置。这个装置将测量两个使用者之间的距离,并在接近时匿名交换身份。任何新感染者装置的匿名身份将被用来追踪危险接触和隐私的破坏情况,然后用我们授权的智能技术来显示我们危险的接触和病毒的传染能力。