During this coronavirus pandemic, life has been completely altered for some people. Daily routines are completely different. People can’t just stop in a store and get what they need anymore or go get a haircut. But for some people it is more serious than that. People who are not in good health and usually have weekly or monthly doctor’s appointments or have to go to the pharmacy every couple days may have trouble getting there. Most doctor’s offices and pharmacies remain open, but there is a risk in going to them, especially for people who already have medical problems.
A San-Francisco based company called Zipline, plans to ease these stressors for people with chronic health issues. This company has been using drones to deliver medical supplies to hospitals and health care centers in Africa since 2016. They now are looking into expanding into the U.S. to help reduce risks of getting medical supplies and even free up hospital beds. In Africa, doctors are able to order supplies off of their phones and receive them quickly. The drones can make deliveries up to 50 miles away and can carry up to four pounds. They are delivered to the ground using small parachutes. Zipline was already planning to expand to the U.S. in 2020 but now hope to be able to help with the coronavirus pandemic. Technology like this might be able to make a huge difference during a time like this and can help stop the spread of the coronavirus by allowing people to stay in their homes.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/tech/zipline-drones-coronavirus-spc-intl/index.html
This is a creative solution. I like that this would reduce the amount of time that people, especially those that are immunosuppressed, have to spend in stores or near other people. I would be worried about the implementation of this technology, however. I’m sure it took Zipline a long time to iron out the details of its working procedures in the places where it already is, and I’m not sure there is enough time to get it implemented here. The US has certain air traffic laws that prevented this type of service from already existing. And I doubt the US is uniform enough to spread these procedures efficiently. The way our infrastructure is set up would most definitely be a difficult obstacle. Let’s say you place an order through Zipline, then what? How does the drone physically go and get the medication, by flying around the local CVS? I can’t help but think that’s a safety disaster waiting to happen. How does the drone gain authorization for your prescription to be released to it? How does it pay? There just seems like a lot to work out before this can realistically happen here, but it’s a very interesting idea.
I never really thought of drones being able to have such a big impact on our daily lives. But, now that covid-19 has taken over not only the United States but the rest of the world as well, we are in need of something to make not leaving our homes a lot easier. Speaking from my own personal experience, I know that at the beginning of March when things really started to get bad for our country, my family was in great panic. No one wanted to be the one responsible for going to the store to get our groceries and other necessities and risk not only themselves catching the virus but also spreading it to the rest of our household. For the first month of the stay at home order, my family and many other families on my block had opted to online shop for our groceries and have them be delivered right to our front steps. Although at the time this seemed like a very great idea for my family, now looking back at the process, we were really just putting other people at harm. There was still someone, a stranger to us, that was picking up our groceries from the store and bringing them to us. For all we could have known that person could have been a carrier, which would have put everyone in my house in jeopardy. Obviously during a time like this it is very hard for anyone to determine what the right thing to do is in these kinds of situations. It is very important to stay as sanitary as possible when going anywhere or getting items delivered to you, but sometimes that is not even enough. This is where the idea of drones comes in as a great possibility to helping all people in situations like the one I described.
The article linked down below explains how the concept of drone delivery could be very beneficial for the management of the pandemic. Lucky for the United States, many places such as NASA, Johns Hopkins and other big name associations have already started working on building and testing drones for situations like covid-19. They have been testing pick-up and delivery processes such as bringing medical supplies from the manufacturing site to the point of destination. This could be very beneficial for a lot of different delivery processes. If the drones are already successful in delivering medical supplies, they could surely be able to deliver other essential items and groceries to peoples homes all across the country. The article talks about how if something this technologically advanced existed in other natural disasters, many lives would have been at less or a risk. No one would’ve had to brave the harsh road conditions to go to the stores and people that were terminally sick in their homes would not have had to leave to go get live saving medicines. Not only would this innovation greatly help people in getting what they need, but it would also help to reduce the spread of the virus. Any kind of no-contact delivery system should be something of great interest to all people. There would be no contaminations to yourself by going into a store and there would be no cross contaminations from another person shopping for you and delivering groceries to your home. As covid-19 continues to encompass the country and effect every persons daily lives, I truly believe that it is in the best interest of the government to start looking into actual drone capabilities.
https://www.newequipment.com/research-and-development/article/21125374/drone-delivery-is-critical-to-pandemic-management
I think drones can be used for many things during the coronavirus epidemic. We can certainly use drones to do things so we do not have to have face to face contact. In China, drones are heavily used during the epidemic. Drones are used to spray disinfecting chemicals. A job like this is much efficient for the drone to do. Drones are also used for delivering goods. I think we should use technology like drones to do things for us to avoid face to face contact.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/three-ways-china-is-using-drones-to-fight-coronavirus/
Reading this article I have discovered there are two sides to a coin. This is the first positive usage of drones in relation to the Coronavirus I have heard of. The first one I heard about was a couple days ago. A community in Connecticut wanted to use the drone technology to monitor if people are properly social distancing and track their body temperature. This is similar to what has been happening in China. The idea was met with a large amount of backlash and it does not seem like they will be moving forward with this plan. This does not nullify the possibilities of other communities attempting the same thing. With the country opening back up in a few weeks I feel as if the chance of this actually happening will decrease. The main ethical problem here is where do citizens draw the line with the government? Is their “safety” worth reducing the amount of privacy they have in their lives. And realistically speaking we do not know if the drones are only used for what we initially are perceiving, unfortunately there could be some underlying motives.
https://reason.com/2020/04/24/community-anger-shuts-down-connecticut-citys-plan-to-use-drones-for-coronavirus-monitoring/