Drones in the fight against the Covid-19 virus

Countries are looking at how UAVs can be deployed in epidemiological control. Africa thinks more clearly: it supplies a vaccine with it. It was a joke last year that while one is preparing for Mars, he cannot wash his hands… We now know that half of this was no joke, and although man has recently sent a “cameraman” and a “chemist” to Mars – well and of course a drone – , a year ago, all mankind, by all means, is primarily about to banish the coronavirus Covid-19 from the pages of history. In this fight, more and more of the decision-makers in the 192 countries affected by the pandemic are looking for which tool is best suited for which task, so they are finding the tasks of drones in more and more places.

The “time window” from July to September proved to be sufficient to make the so-called African Health Aviation Corridor available to drones in a regulated manner, delivering drugs and vaccines against coronaviruses. The participants in the alliance are Astral Aerial Solutions, Kenya Civil Aviation Authority, Wingcopter and others. The task would be to allow 60 percent of the African population to be vaccinated in 2-3 years by delivering a portion of 1.5 billion vaccines “last mile,” that is, by direct mail. Astral flew four thousand in 2020, with a cargo of 110,000 tons, reports Logupdateafrica.

In the same way, the – California start-up – company Zipline is traveling in Ghana in vaccination logistics. As Dronelife writes, accessible, licensed vaccines are already flying to designated healthcare facilities. Incidentally, 600,000 doses of Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine from the Indian factory arrived in Ghana on 23 February through the African Vaccine Aid Program, from where the injection must be “spread”. Zipline guarantees fast and flexible access to an area that is home to 12 million people in collaboration. The company works in partnership with local health and the Ghanaian aviation authority. Zipline has previously agreed with Nigeria to supply other vaccines, according to CNBC news.

It is also clear from the above that the “late starter advantage” in Africa can also be in the field of air transport infrastructure, as there is no need to build large, expensive and unsustainable airports in underdeveloped, sparsely populated parts of the continent for much more precise smart transport. – and in a more environmentally friendly way. India, too, is being forced by the natural disasters in the broadest sense to develop the drone industry rapidly, almost in “real time”. As The Print, the second most populous country in the world, reports, the coronavirus, floods and locusts only multiply each other’s damage.

Now we focus on what the drones are doing in the Covid case. The state, with the involvement of private companies, uses drones for patrols and incident reporting in a very simple procedure: they send the device to places where many people are expected to turn in small places, e.g. playgrounds, markets. In Mumbai, one of the largest cities on earth with 13 million inhabitants, 40 pilots reached a radius of 2 km each, and although police loudspeakers were too heavy to send with drones, a solution was found to use 4 and a half kilometers of loudspeakers in 4 languages. inform the local population to follow the rules of distance. Each plane flew “for a breath” for 30 minutes or 5 kilometers, up to 400 meters high. Their operation was made possible by an immediate decree last May, and the Ministry of Civil Aviation quickly found the required number and willingness of drone pilot candidates for the task. Incidentally, the number of commercial and hobby drones in the country is estimated at 200,000, but in densely populated areas only the Covid situation provides an opportunity to use them. Since 2018, all commissioned drones must be reported.

Similar official activity is being carried out in the United Arab Emirates, according to Khaleejtimes, for example, in the vicinity of mosques. Such a role of the drone as a logistics tool in the world is remarkable only because it is precisely as a result of the crisis that many tech companies have withheld their development investments, such as drones, or their increasingly frequent resource, renewable energy.