Together in Solidarity

On the two millionth death from the COVID-19 pandemic, Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, put out an impassioned statement urging world leaders to find solidarity amongst this global crisis.

“Our world can only get ahead of this virus one way — together.”

While political divisiveness and instability have been widespread amidst a pandemic (the likes of which the world had not seen in over a century, since the “Spanish Flu”), a global community has answered the call for solidarity to lead a collaborative effort against the deadly virus: Engineers.

The World Health Organization (WHO, 2021) has reported nearly 100 million confirmed cases and over 2 million deaths since the novel coronavirus was first identified in late December of 2019. As the virus rapidly spread across the globe, it became clear that hospitals were not only understaffed but also in shortage of critical medical devices and supplies including ventilators, testing kits, and personal protective equipment (PPE).

With a global shortage of PPE like the N95 respirators, engineers heavily utilized 3D printing technology to make up for the deficit. In Santiago de Chile, a team developed a 3D-printable mask called the “NanoHack” that makes use of a modular filtration system that can substitute the standard polypropylene filter with other more readily available materials and made it open source for anyone to download and use (English, 2020).

In Canada, women in engineering have addressed the shortage problems by either repurposing facilities to produce more PPE or reprocessing existing PPE for safe reuse. Professor Hanan Anis and her students at the University of Ottawa modified open-source designs found on the internet to 3D print 300 face shields a day and distributed them to local frontline workers in hospitals, clinics, and other medical institutions. Similarly, Professor Laura Curiel at the University of Calgary worked with her students to print COVID-19 test kits to aid in replenishing dwindling supplies (Engineering Canada, 2020).

Engineers had to get creative to find solutions in the unlikeliest of places. A novel solution was developed by Professor Amina Stoddart and Research Associate Carolina Ontiveros of Dalhousie University by looking at the wastewater industry. The use of UV lights as a disinfectant had been a common practice, but the pair was able to apply this technique to disinfecting N95 respirators to make them reusable (Engineering Canada, 2020). Across the world in Africa, engineers in Côte d’Ivoire have similarly made observations of the local cashew industry’s method for food waste to produce sanitizing gels (Wallace et al., 2020).

Robotics was also a major tool utilized by engineers in solving healthcare problems posed by the pandemic. A team at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand have repurposed telemedicine robots that were originally designed to aid stroke patients to assist doctors in assessing the condition of COVID-19 patients, as well as tracking their symptoms, all while maintaining a safe distance between doctors and patients (English, 2020). In the absence of existing telemedicine robots, a team at the Thapar Institute of Engineering in India have developed working models of a Robo-cart in just three days with a team of seven people to remotely deliver medicine and food to patients at the local hospital (Khanna, 2020).

Engineers around the world have endeavored to not only alleviate the crisis faced in healthcare but also in education—another critical area impacted by the pandemic. A pair of engineering students from Kerala, India developed a virtual classroom environment with a social media-type interface to allow students and teachers to continue classes amidst the pandemic (Springwise, 2020). Elsewhere in the world, engineers developed a mobile learning management platform for students across Kenya and Sub- Saharan Africa. An AI-driven algorithm was utilized so that every student, regardless of income or location, can receive a personalized education (Kannarkat, 2020).

As world leaders of high-income countries prioritize nationalism and make side-deals to procure vaccines beyond need, the Secretary-General of the United Nations may have lamented on the absence of a global coordinated effort, but his call for solidarity had not completely fallen on deaf ears.

Representing women, minorities, and nations from all around the world, engineers have answered that call—working in unison to meet the challenges of the pandemic through collaborative engineering— together in solidarity.

Annotated Bibliography