Guest Editorial Special Issue on “Edge-Based Wireless Communications Technologies to Counter Communicable Infectious Diseases”

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in one of the major challenges for humanity in the 21st century. The impact of these challenges has led to a tremendous loss of life, impact on long-term health, well-being as well as personal psychology, and negative societal changes and not to mention its impact on the global economy. Since this is a health issue, similar to other forms of diseases and pandemics, society has largely relied on the fields of medical, virology, immunology, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical science to develop novel therapeutic solutions for treatments. This has resulted in vaccines that have been rolled out to elevate immunity levels that will hopefully allow the majority of the population to reach herd immunity. However, given the technological advancements that we have reached in the 21st century, questions have also risen as to how other disciplines can play a role in solving and obtaining new knowledge of communicable disease pandemics.