V2X-based COVID-19 Pandemic Severity Reduction in Smart Cities

In a jiffy after the outbreak of the 2019 novel coron-avirus, also called COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2, the World Health Organization (WHO) considered it as a pandemic that threatens the demise of humanity. This quick decision was in conjunction with a real situation of biological inability to find a vaccine that can eliminate the virus or at least limit its spread. For that reason, technological intervention and cooperation are needed more than ever to face this pandemic. In this same context, we propose a novel system that deploys Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology and Blockchain in collaboration to face such a pandemic. Our proposal is centered on a triple-stage processing i) zone identification and classification based on vehicles' thermal cameras detection, ii) Blockchain-based information storage for enhanced patient medical information privacy, and iii) drones-based zone neutralization processes. Simulation results show that, thanks to the use of Blockchain technology, the network-related performance remain almost unchanged and hence, all Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) including inter-vehicles and inter-drones functionalities are not affected. In addition the additional overhead is very acceptable and does not exceed the 5 Kb in the worst case.