  The recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic requires careful planning and
monitoring while people gradually return to work. Internet-of-Things (IoT) is
widely regarded as a crucial tool to help combating COVID-19 pandemic in many
areas and societies. In particular, the heterogeneous data captured by IoT
solutions can inform policy making and quick responses to community events.
This article introduces a novel IoT crowd monitoring solution which uses
software defined networks (SDN) assisted WiFi access points as 24/7 sensors to
monitor and analyze the use of physical space. Prototypes and crowd behavior
models are developed using over 500 million records captured on a university
campus. Besides supporting informed decision at institution level, the results
can be used by individual visitors to plan or schedule their access to
facilities.
