# IoT Technologies during and Beyond COVID-19: A Comprehensive Review
## 1 Introduction  
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a collection of interconnected devices, humans, objects, and services that share data to accomplish a common objective in different areas and applications, as defined by [1]. IoT is used in many different domains, such as healthcare, agriculture, transportation, distribution, and energy production. Rapid development was made in the IoT industry due to both Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) that enables the communication between devices and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), which allows the labelling of devices [1].  
IoT currently plays an important role in many fields. Healthcare is one of the prominent sectors benefitted by the advancement of IoT [2]. In the health sector, IoT has drastically changed the lives of both the young and elderly, as it can constantly track their health [3]. These devices are of greater use with reduced cost and faster disease diagnosis. The role of the IoT landscape has been significantly changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic [4]. Some use is directly related to mitigating the spread of the virus (e.g., contact tracing, temperature screening, etc.) whereas others seek to facilitate the new normal created by the pandemic (e.g., working from home, homeschooling, home fitness, etc.) [5; 6; 7].  
The coronavirus disease (COVID) is a contagious disease caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which can be spread through nose discharge and saliva droplets from the sneezes or coughs of infected people. COVID-19 symptoms involve shortness or difficulty in breathing, fever, cough, vomiting, fatigue, and loss of taste or smell. Transmission risk is highest when the distance between the carrier and the subject is less than 2 m. Hence, limiting human-to-human interaction is the current appropriate solution [8].  
It is important to be able to detect early cases, trace, and isolate infected people during pandemics. A system is needed to keep businesses running and customers and employees healthy. IoT technologies with RFID, Near Field Communication (NFC), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and GPS help provide better solutions for the aforementioned cases. These technologies are now infused with small, wearable, and portable devices. Energy consumption, computational time, cost, data rate, practicality, and coverage may differ from one device to another, depending on the material and technology used. Other than patient needs, IoT helps in resolving machinery issues faster for healthcare workers, managing pharmacy inventory controls, and keeping track of tagged equipment, such as nebulizers and oxygen tanks [9].  
Our paper focuses on the role of IoT during COVID-19, IoT-based solutions for COVID-19 in different industries, challenges, and threat mitigation practices for IoT. The main research question that this paper trying to address is: \"What is the use and impact of IoT basic technologies during COVID-19 and beyond?\".  
In order to answer the above research question, a comprehensive review was conducted by the authors. Consequently, it was found that IoT provided solutions for many applications and systems in different industries (healthcare, transportation, entertainment, retail, education, and communication) during the COVID-19 pandemic and there is more potential in the post-COVID-19 era. Solutions vary from wearable devices and temperature screening to contact tracing solutions.  
This article is organized as follows: Section 2 discusses the related work and reviews. Section 3 presents the paper methodology and research objectives. The role of IoT during COVID-19; the IoT inspired frameworks for tackling COVID-19, and future pandemics in different sections are discussed in Section 4. Section 5 presents the role of IoT and expectation in the post-COVID-19 era. Section 6 displays IoT privacy, polices, and security challenges. Section 7 presents IoT threat mitigations and emerging Code of Practice. Section 8 present the implications and future directions. Finally, Section 9 concludes the paper.