Fighting COVID-19: emerging techniques and aid systems for prevention, forecasting and diagnosis

Abstract

Since its emergence at the end of 2019, the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus has led to multiple changes in health protocols around the world. This event has also given a major boost to the development and evolution of techniques and systems to aid in the prevention, forecasting and diagnosis of this disease. All these advances, beyond being applied to COVID-19 itself, have a broad impact on the systems developed for other diseases. This special issue aims to collect and present cutting-edge work on the evolution and trend of COVID-19, the application of Machine Learning-based techniques for disease diagnosis (either through images or time series), experimental studies related to the virus, and systems focused on helping to contain and prevent the spread of the virus. A total of 18 articles in various fields related to the topics listed above are included. Of these, the vast majority (17 articles) are research articles, while the remaining one is a literature review.