Robots can perform any task without getting tired, which makes them suitable for helping medical staff, governments and people all over the world to fight the ongoing pandemic
Robots have time and again assisted humans in disaster relief missions across the world. Now, with a new threatening challenge: the COVID-19 pandemic becoming a never-ending obstacle, the pressure on healthcare workers to contain this disease has risen in great magnitude. And the per day increasing number of infected cases is adding more to the already stressful circumstances. Fortunately, in these difficult times when protection masks and suits have become scarce, robots have come to work by maintaining safe-distance to prevent any risk of spreading the disease.
Meet Tommy the robot. Deployed at the Circolo hospital in the city of Varese, northern Italy, the robot is attending patients and reminding them to maintain safe distancing.
“It’s like having another nurse without problems related to infection,” said Doctor Francesco Dentali, director of High Intensity Medicine at the Circolo hospital.
Italy is the worst affected country having more than 170,000 confirmed cases of contraction and more than 22,000 reported dead.
The robot receives information from the patient and relays them back to doctors, who can then take effective measures without being at risk of infection. It is also capable of measuring blood pressure and oxygen levels of patients in the ICU. Tommy and his fellow compatriot robots are doing their best to ease the burden on doctors and nurses taking care of coronavirus patients.
In China, where the disease was first detected, medicine and food delivery robots have done a great job in transporting essential supplies to the doctors and the patients.
A hospital in Belgium has employed robots that use UV light to disinfect hospital wards so that any trace of suspected infection can be entirely eliminated before that room can be used by doctors and patients.
A robot deployed in a hospital in Thailand enables doctors and patients to do a live interaction through video chat. This allows them to monitor the patients without putting themselves under risk of exposure.
In Tunisia, a police robot makes rounds of the city streets to make sure that people stay within homes during the period of lockdown.
These and many more robots across the world are taking care of patients with utmost devotion during this pandemic. With huge progress going on in the field of robotics, there’s no doubt that these automated machines will continue to provide more and more vital services in the times to come.
