The role of 5G for digital healthcare against COVID-19 pandemic: Opportunities and challenges

COVID-19 pandemic caused a massive impact on healthcare, social life, and economies on a global scale. Apparently, technology has a vital role to enable ubiquitous and accessible digital health services in pandemic conditions as well as against “re-emergence” of COVID-19 disease in a post-pandemic era. Accordingly, 5G systems and 5G-enabled e-health solutions are paramount. This paper highlights methodologies to effectively utilize 5G for e-health use cases and its role to enable relevant digital services. It also provides a comprehensive discussion of the implementation issues, possible remedies and future research directions for 5G to alleviate the health challenges related to COVID-19