Looking at smart cities through the lens of a pandemic era: a systematic literature review

Health institutions and hospitals are essential in ensuring the appropriate treatment of human health. One of the major concerns is the increasingly overcrowded patients care queues. The global COVID-19 pandemic heightened this problem. In an increasingly connected environment, such as smart cities, people's health can be monitored, so scenarios requiring medical support can be identified beforehand. Looking at the literature, we did not find surveys that address smart cities' approaches to handling the pandemic landscape. Based on this background, we propose a systematic literature review discussing the following issues: involved players and their interactions, processing techniques to generate value for the population, smart city architectures to cover pandemic situations, and data standards and technologies applied in this context. We have studied 58 articles, answering research questions regarding the above-mentioned topics. As contributions, we add to the literature a state-of-the-art vision regarding challenges, open issues, and trends in the combination of smart cities and their support for pandemic situations.