TY - JOUR

T1 - How Do Smart City Technologies Help to Cope with the Pandemic?

AU - Kostina, E. A.

AU - Kostin, A. V.

N1 - Funding Information: This work was supported within the Research Work Plan of the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, project no. 121040100283-2 “Regional and municipal strategic planning and administration in the context of modernizing the government’s regional policy and developing the digital economy.” Publisher Copyright: © 2022, Pleiades Publishing, Ltd.

PY - 2022/6

Y1 - 2022/6

N2 - The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant changes worldwide. A large body of research already exists to identify factors that influence the disease incidence and mortality, both at the scale of individual regions within countries and at the national scale. The consistently high number of cases of virus acquisition and the discovery of new strains show that the relevance of this research is not decreasing. International and domestic experience demonstrates the expansion of the use of digital technologies to combat the pandemic and its consequences. These include technologies that help identify infected individuals, trace contacts, predict the spread of the disease, conduct diagnostics and treatment, raise population awareness, maintain social distancing and self-isolation, and enable the transition to an online format. These technologies are more widespread in smart cities through the availability of the corresponding infrastructure; however, they can be implemented anywhere. This study is aimed at assessing the contribution of smart technology and comfortable urban environment to the fight against coronavirus infection. A hypothesis is proposed about the existence of an inverse dependence between smart urban environment and the number of deaths. The dependence is checked by statistical methods. The results we obtained show that the presence of a developed urban infrastructure in fact reduces excess mortality, which includes deaths not only from the infection itself but also from its consequences. A developed urban infrastructure also contributes to mitigating the issues associated with healthcare system overload and helps to reduce difficulties related to planned medical examinations and planned operations, etc. Nevertheless, the level of digitalization of urban environment has no significant impact on mortality.

AB - The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant changes worldwide. A large body of research already exists to identify factors that influence the disease incidence and mortality, both at the scale of individual regions within countries and at the national scale. The consistently high number of cases of virus acquisition and the discovery of new strains show that the relevance of this research is not decreasing. International and domestic experience demonstrates the expansion of the use of digital technologies to combat the pandemic and its consequences. These include technologies that help identify infected individuals, trace contacts, predict the spread of the disease, conduct diagnostics and treatment, raise population awareness, maintain social distancing and self-isolation, and enable the transition to an online format. These technologies are more widespread in smart cities through the availability of the corresponding infrastructure; however, they can be implemented anywhere. This study is aimed at assessing the contribution of smart technology and comfortable urban environment to the fight against coronavirus infection. A hypothesis is proposed about the existence of an inverse dependence between smart urban environment and the number of deaths. The dependence is checked by statistical methods. The results we obtained show that the presence of a developed urban infrastructure in fact reduces excess mortality, which includes deaths not only from the infection itself but also from its consequences. A developed urban infrastructure also contributes to mitigating the issues associated with healthcare system overload and helps to reduce difficulties related to planned medical examinations and planned operations, etc. Nevertheless, the level of digitalization of urban environment has no significant impact on mortality.

KW - COVID-19

KW - excess mortality

KW - smart city

KW - Urban Environment Quality Index

KW - “IQ of cities” urban economy digitalization index

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85138174910&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/f5e15074-4a69-3e99-9210-010661e15c57/

U2 - 10.1134/S2079970522020149

DO - 10.1134/S2079970522020149

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85138174910

VL - 12

SP - 241

EP - 249

JO - Regional Research of Russia

JF - Regional Research of Russia

SN - 2079-9705

IS - 2

ER -