Passive contact tracing and social distancing assessment for COVID-19

新冠肺炎疫情给全球公共卫生和经济造成巨大损害，是未来两三年我们面临的最大挑战。COVID-19是一种新型传染病，目前没有药物或疫苗。保持社会距离已成为最有效的保护措施之一。SARS-CoV-2病毒的传播非常有效。在没有干预的情况下，繁殖数量在2到3之间。中位潜伏期约为5天（最多14天），但人们能够在发病前2天传播病毒，直到他们康复。如果人们在感染早期接触过感染者，我们只有一到三天的时间在他们变得具有传染性之前找到密切接触者。通过找到这些人并要求他们隔离并阻止指数传播链来采取行动的机会窗口非常短暂。公共卫生系统必须对COVID-19病例做出非常迅速的反应。越来越多的证据表明，封闭的室内空间，如家庭、办公室、交通工具、餐馆等，是病毒传播的最肥沃土壤。随着重新开放的开始，保持社交距离和追踪接触者对于控制病毒在每个企业和组织中的传播至关重要。对于所需的规模来说，接触者追踪是一项艰巨的任务，在工作场所使用追踪工具的组织可以与卫生部门合作，有效地管理COVID-19。在这个项目中，维多利亚大学的研究人员和世纪公司将开发一种基于隐私保护的WiFi系统，以对抗COVID-19，实现

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought enormous damage to public health and global economy, and is the greatest challenge we are facing for the next two or three years. COVID-19 is a new infectious disease and currently there is no drugs or vaccine. Social distancing has become one of the most effective protection measures. The virus SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted very efficiently. Without intervention, the reproductive number is between 2 to 3. The median incubation period is about 5 days (up to 14 days), but people are able to spread the virus 2 days before they become ill until they recover. If people were exposed to an infected person at the early infectious stage, we have only one to three days to find the close contacts before they become infectious. The window of opportunity to act by finding those people and asking them to quarantine and stop the exponential transmission chains is very short. The public health systems have to respond very quickly to COVID-19 cases. Mounting evidence shows that enclosed indoor spaces such as home, offices, transport, restaurants, etc., are the most fertile ground for virus spread. Social distancing and contact tracing are vital to contain virus transmission in every business and organization as reopening begins. Contact tracing is a daunting task for the scale required and organizations employing tracing tools at workplace can cooperate with the health departments to manage COVID-19 efficiently. In this project, UVic researchers and Acentury Inc. will develop a privacy preserved WiFi based system in the fight of COVID-19, to achieve 1) Passive indoor contact tracing in spatial and temporal dimensions; 2) Assessment of in-building social distancing practice; 3) Environment contamination mapping for deep disinfection. The technologies developed facilitate workplace COVID-19 management on a business, professional or government organization's premises. The results can be quickly shared with health authorities in cases of infections or outbreaks, as directed by the organization policy.