COVID-19 contact tracking based on person reidentification and geospatial data

Abstract

Efficient contact tracing is a crucial step in preventing the spread of COVID-19. However, the current methods rely heavily on manual investigation and truthful reporting by high-risk individuals. Mobile applications and Bluetooth-based contact tracing methods have also been adopted, but privacy concerns and reliance on personal data have limited their effectiveness. To address these challenges, in this paper, a geospatial big data method that combines person reidentification and geospatial information for contact tracing is proposed. The proposed real-time person reidentification model can identify individuals across multiple surveillance cameras, and the surveillance data is fused with geographic information and mapped onto a 3D geospatial model to track movement trajectories. After real-world verification, the proposed method achieves a first accuracy rate of 91.56%, a first-five accuracy rate of 97.70%, and a mean average precision of 78.03% with an inference speed of 13 ms per image. Importantly, the proposed method does not rely on personal information, mobile phones, or wearable devices, avoiding the limitations of existing contact tracing schemes and providing significant implications for public health in the post-COVID-19 era.

Keywords

• COVID-19
• Contact tracking
• Person reidentification
• Geospatial data
• Public health