In China, the fear of a second wave of the Covid-19 coronavirus epidemic is very present. In this sense, a local company has developed a small autonomous vehicle intended for surveillance. The latter, which works with 5G, has the mission of taking the temperature of passers-by remotely.
Not long ago, we were talking about the risk of a second wave of Covid-19 in China, after the country had apparently successfully fought the epidemic. And for good reason, life is little by little resuming its course and Chinese citizens come out and gather again in the capital, Beijing, but also in the other major cities of the country.
As the Xinhua News Agency explained in an article published on April 6, 2020, China has just rolled out an autonomous cart on the streets. The objective is to take the temperature of citizens from a distance , thanks to a thermal camera. At the back, a giant screen allows an agent to check the temperature of people himself. In addition, the vehicle can also identify pedestrians using facial recognition.
The car, designed by the company Cool High Technology and the Beijing Institute of Technology, is too small for a human to enter. On the other hand, it can contain parcels and ensure deliveries . Currently deployed on the campus of the institute, the vehicle could possibly be used on a larger scale in the near future.
Completely autonomous, the cart operates using 5G. This technology, China has already adopted it as part of the fight against Covid-19. The goal was to increase the communication power of hospitals Chinese, and therefore their harmonization and their capacities. In addition, 5G has made it possible to read scanner results remotely and to optimize image quality. This made it possible to limit contact between staff and patients.
However, this kind of vehicle seems insufficient to avoid a second wave in China. According to Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong, this second wave is simply inevitable. The expert mentioned in particular a silent spread caused by asymptomatic people. Remember that these people who are infected and show no symptoms are unfortunately contagious. However, they can only be detected after the emergence of enough cases and not during random temperature checks . Thus, for the epidemiologist, China could be even more impacted during this second wave.
