Abstract

With nearly 2 million infection cases and 125,000 deaths worldwide, the COVID-19 virus has
snowballed into a pandemic that is bringing unprecedented challenges to global economy and
healthcare systems. In an attempt to curb the virus, governments worldwide have enforced social
distancing measures and lockdowns.
By imposing restrictions on physical interactions and maintaining at least a 2-meter distance with
others, the health officials aim to stabilize the rate of infection and reduce the spread so that the
number of cases does not exceed the capacity of the healthcare systems. As seen in countries
such as China, Italy and Iran, when the rate of infection becomes higher than the healthcare
capacity and resources, medical professionals are left with making the difficult choice of who
receives care and supplies on a priority basis, and this shortage of resources has caused many
fatalities. This makes the decision of social distancing very crucial in the control of the virus and
prevention of overburdening the healthcare system.
While the social distancing measures keep the common public safe within the comfort of their
homes, many essential jobs require workers to come out and do physical work to keep food
supply chains and healthcare systems running. This exposes these essential workers to a very
high risk for contracting the virus. These workers include jobs for truck drivers, nurses, grocery
store employees, manufacturing workforce, among several others. In some of these sectors such
as hospitals, maintaining a 2-meter distance becomes difficult due to the nature of the work. This
in turn increases the probability of contagion and thus, makes the entire group of workers highly
vulnerable. Statistics show that in Italy, 9% of the COVID-19 cases were in healthcare workers
[1]. In the USA, COVID-19 cases in healthcare workers are as high as 16% in the state of Ohio
[2].
Risk of virus spread is high in healthcare staff due to:
 High risk of contamination from patients while testing and treating them
 Low opportunity for physical distancing from patients and other coworkers
 Running low on personal protective equipment (PPE)
In an already overburdened healthcare system, with limited personnel and high rate of incoming
patients, it is not only important to keep the workers safe, but also to optimize the available
workforce.
Industry 4.0 is an industrial revolution that offers several automation and digitization solutions
for many industries [3]. By relying on automation and reducing human intervention in
manufacturing and supply chain, among many other industries, the Industry 4.0 technologies
enable an economy with highly reduced risk of contagions by reducing frequency of human
interactions.