China and Saudi Arabia are at the forefront of the use of new technologies to track health data via phone apps to overcome their shortage of physicians

Damien NG, PhD, Next Generation Research at Julius Baer

Unlocking the secrets of Covid-19

Testing, testing and more testing

Since the World Health Organisation has strongly recommended the importance of testing patients for Covid-19, this article will concentrate on the two nations that have come under media focus for the number of diagnostic tests carried out in their countries. On absolute terms, the US has conducted the most number of Covid-19 tests worldwide. As of April 15, around 3.2 million tests were conducted in the US. This compares to around 500,000 in South Korea. But when we zoom in on a per million population basis, the US is clearly still lagging behind South Korea. But the good news is that figures show the US is rapidly ramping up the number of diagnostic tests for its citizens.

Beyond the Covid-19 crisis

Although the pandemic has caught many governments and public healthcare institutions off-guard, the crisis has surely brought the importance of genomic research to the fore. Why is that so? Despite the intensive media coverage of Covid-19 pandemic, medical professionals are also silently fighting battles against other deadly diseases. For example, in 2019, there were 19 million people who contracted cancer worldwide. Out of the 19 million, 10 million died from cancer. Compare these mindboggling numbers with that of the Covid-19 deaths at over 171,000 as of April 21, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

In other words, the knowledge gained from the Covid-19 research could pave the way for more study into gene-based therapies and other health technologies to combat present and future health threats. Not only will this research help the world deal with the present infection, but it could also herald an era of tailored treatments for other diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, depending on the patient’s DNA composition. All in all, the pandemic should further foster a long-term transformation of the healthcare industry, rendering it more resilient and more efficient for mankind.