Three Covid-19 prevention techno kits. The role of video surveillance

Recommendations “Stay at home”, “Wear masks/gloves” cannot fight the new coronavirus infection. This fact has already been confirmed by time. Companies are forced to attract new technical means to ensure the safety of employees and customers. Remote and intelligent video surveillance helps in solving many issues. Details are below.

What has been done?

A year has passed, and the realities are as follows:

• state medical and educational institutions, as well as 70% of manufacturing enterprises, are not equipped with contactless access means;
• large office centers with high traffic are still far from the concept of “smart office,” and shopping centers are limited to selective temperature measurement;
• the high-tech project “Safe City” operates only in 7 cities of the Russian Federation.

Prevention of covid is lame: there are practically no free gloves and masks. Our maximum is one bottle of antiseptic, tied to the door, and measuring the temperature with a device of questionable accuracy. Not everyone can afford to stay at home, do you agree?

What to do?

Three techno kits for preventing and combating the virus

Experts believe (I fully support this point of view, as a video surveillance specialist) that our country needs to introduce three innovations massively:

1. Contactless identification technologies in public medical and educational institutions. Integration solutions for ACS + video surveillance in crowded places, including office centers, production facilities, and large companies.
2. Remote access control and surveillance systems.
3. Principles of smart technologies.

These are the “three whales” in the fight against covid. 

In particular, such integrated products are already on the market. They can:

1. work in automatic and manual mode;
2. give a high degree of accuracy;
3. monitor continuously.

In addition to the goal of ensuring the safety of human health, prevention, and control of covid, the use of innovative developments allows to:

• Reduce the workload of security personnel.
• Eliminate the “human factor.”
• Get a wealth of information to study and use in marketing.

Contactless method of access and identification

At present, the priority task of the state is to contain covid-19 and provide anti-terrorist protection of the population.

The mass introduction of contactless means of access and personal identification into state children’s educational institutions, universities, hospitals, and clinics allows:

• visit public places with a minimum of physical contact;
• avoid crowds of people (in particular in registries, vaccination, and treatment rooms);
• prevent threats and unforeseen situations;
• monitor “black” and “white” lists of visitors;
• monitor compliance with labor discipline;
• collect analytics data to improve work and service.

You can find a lot of valuable information in the article “The benefits of biometrics in business security 2021“.

Remote management of control systems

The optimal solution for remote management of monitoring systems is control via a mobile phone. This decision is due to security, growth in mobile traffic, and, accordingly, ease of use.

Did you know that by using two phones, you can quickly create a complete video surveillance system? Details are in the article “Remote video surveillance via telephone and Internet.“

Clever systems

The world market for “smart” technologies has already celebrated its coming of age, and the Russian market is in its infancy. However, the definition itself no longer causes a surprise among Russians. We are talking about the implementation of video analytics, equipment for smart homes/offices and cities.

How can automated systems help to fight the covid epidemic?

1. Provide management of various areas (climate, resource consumption, video surveillance, communication system) from one remote center.
2. Eliminate a large number of physical contacts upon entry.
3. Reduce the number of maintenance personnel.
4. Monitor compliance with mask regime and other sanitary requirements in automatic mode. Identify sick people by symptoms and fever from the flow of people.

As a result

The only way out in solving the global problem of “covid-19 prevention” is introducing a symbiosis of hardware and technical devices, “contactless access means + thermometry,” and the use of a video surveillance system with elements of artificial intelligence.