pandemic drone

 Drones have been employed now for many purposes. They are used in filmmaking, fire-fighting and water rescues. Their newest purpose is to monitor populations for outbreaks of COVID-19.  The drone can detect a person sneezing from 15-20 metres away.  At half that distance it can pick up a heart rate and elevated temperature.  It can also check for any breakdown in social distancing.

 The idea is not to pick out an individual but to detect a pattern within a city.  Detecting a cluster of such cases can help in the fight to keep the virus at bay when some of the constraints on society are relaxed. But it does uncannily resonate with the conspiracy idea that some of the birds you see are in fact government drones spying on you.