Towards an alternative to lockdown: Pandemic management leveraging digital technologies and artificial intelligence

Abstract Practitioners of pandemic management seek a clear understanding on how to manage leverage technology, regulation, and other mechanisms to fight the pandemic. Two key levers are prevention of infections, closely followed by mitigation, the ability to break chains of existing infections. We review approaches toward these key levers, illustrating the catalytic potential of information and communication technology and artificial intelligence. Pandemics have so far been mitigated by “one-size-fits-all” massive lockdowns with big social and economic impacts. Towards improved effectiveness balanced with less negative side effects, one could take a more informed personalized as well as collective risk management approach, which we term Pandemic Cohort Management. It can drastically improve prevention and mitigation. It relies on real-time data, to enable informed personalized decisions, instead of “one-size-fits-all.” Furthermore, it scales down all the way to the level of meetings of small groups of people and optimizes individual as well as collective risk and cost models.