Overview and Comparison of the Main Approaches to the Implementation of Contact Tracing Mechanisms in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic poses new challenges and threats to the international community. In particular, today the number of people infected with coronavirus infection already exceeds 80 million, almost 2 million died from the pandemic, and these terrible statistics are not final. Under these conditions, quarantine restrictions are almost the only effective means of counteracting the effects of the epidemic by reducing the rate of virus spread. However, quarantine restrictions have extremely serious consequences for the world economy, they have already led to a significant reduction in production and, consequently, jobs in almost all sectors of the economy. Therefore, the development and implementation of the latest information technologies for contact tracking in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic is an extremely important and urgent task. The purpose of this article is to research and substantiate various information technologies (such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, etc.) in contact tracking tools to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. We analyze different approaches to the implementation of contact tracing mechnisms, highlight their advantages and disadvantages as well as opportunities for improvement. Also we analyze examples of real applications of the advanced countries functioning at the state level.