How to Fight COVID-19 Virus with Virtual Reality?
Recently updated on August 15th, 2021 at 10:49 pm
As most of us already know that “Coronavirus disease 2019” or popularly known as COVID-19 is a pandemic that has taken the world by storm. Due to this situation, most of us are now is Working From Home (WFH) due to the lockdowns. With this WFH trend, virtual reality is fast becoming one of the alternatives for remote working, online learning, virtual travelling and place to hangout virtually. Is there any way that virtual reality is also used to fight COVID-19 directly?
Yes, absolutely there is. Below are some of way how it is done…
1) Virtual Collaboration Platform
Due to the lockdowns, it is very struggling for the scientists and researchers to work together side by side like before. With VR, they can met and continue to collaborate in the virtual environment. This platform can also function to be something like community hub or the metaverse for the SME (Subject Matter Expert).
2) Increase Vaccination Numbers
Some people are very afraid of the needle. This might be reason why they don’t want to go for vaccination due to the phobia of this sharp thing piercing their skin. Perhaps, we can promote the used of VR for this kind of people to reduce their fear of being jabbed.
Let them watch some VR videos or Virtual Ride while the vaccination process take place. Hopefully, the vaccination numbers can increase with this kind of facility at the vaccination center.
3) Better Visualization of Molecular Systems
With the virtual environment, researchers can study and have more understanding of the molecular systems and how they interact. This can help the team during the molecular design phase. An example is where the VR solution from Nanome is used by Oak Ridge National Laboratory to study COVID-19. Not just by that laboratory, but their VR solution also is used by other top pharma firms as well.
4) Produce Complex Analytics & Simulation
With the limitless border in the virtual environment (VE), scientists can use it to put up many screens that display the analytics dashboard or simulations. This can help them to maneuver around the results efficiently.
5) Getting Earlier Insights
In some cases, VR can offer insights that can only be seen using this medium. Hence, the researchers can get some of the results earlier before the clinical trials. With this advantage, it can assist in faster decision making during the design. This can help them save the costs of time, money and resources. This can help a lot during the discovery of the vaccine.
6) Therapy & Mental Health Care
Due to the lockdowns, most of us will be stressed out since we are “trapped” in our own home. Some might go down until the level of depression or suicidal. VR provides way for us to escape and release our tension with the capability to perform virtual tour or travel. Hence, this can reduce a bit on the number of death due to COVID-19.
7) Awareness to Public
In Oculus TV and YouTube TV, there are some immersive videos that shows the struggle of the front liners and the suffering of the COVID-19 patients in the hospitals. This can serve as the public awareness so the society will be more strict in following and comply with the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to battle this pandemic.
That’s all for now on how VR can be used to fight COVID-19 directly. We will add in the info from time to time. Image above is by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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