Can your Fitbit or Apple Watch detect a novel coronavirus infection before the onset of symptoms?
Researchers are increasingly looking at these devices and other such wearables as a possible early warning system for the virus.
Last month, scientists at the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute said they had created a digital platform that can detect COVID-19 symptoms up to three days before they show up using the Oura ring, a wearable fitness and activity tracker.
An app developed by the researchers uses artificial intelligence to forecast the onset of COVID-19-related symptoms such as fever, coughing, breathing difficulties and fatigue, with more than 90 percent accuracy, the university said.
The researchers said the system could offer clues of infection in people not yet showing symptoms — helping address one of the problems in detection and containment of the outbreak.
Separately, Scripps Research Institute has enrolled more than 30,000 people — and aims for much more — in a similar study aiming to use wearables to find “presymptomatic” and asymptomatic people with COVID-19.
Early indications suggest that the devices “have the potential to identify people who are presymptomatic, but still infectious,” said Jennifer Radin, a Scripps epidemiologist leading the research.
Radin told an online conference discussing the research that wearables are detecting “subtle changes that indicate you are coming down with a viral illness” before the onset of symptoms.
Scripps researchers said they hope to show that wearables data might be more reliable than temperature checks.
Resting heart rate, for example, is a good indicator, because it is normally consistent before an infection, and can be accurately measured by most wearables.
“We see these changes [in heart rate] four days before someone starts to develop a fever,” Radin said.
Eric Topol, director of the Scripps institute, said the idea of using wearables is promising, because “over 100 million Americans have a smart watch or fitness band,” which can provide key data for researchers, but that getting good results “is contingent on getting large numbers” to opt into the studies.
Meanwhile, California health tech start-up Evidation has begun a project to produce an early warning algorithm from wearables worn by 300 people at high risk of contracting the coronavirus, with funding from the US government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Evidation cofounder and chief data scientist Luca Foschini said that the research aims “to more effectively identify when and where people may contract COVID-19, and can potentially enable real-time interventions to limit spread and monitor outcomes.”
A similar research effort is under way in Germany.
The latest research highlights how some wearable devices — developed initially for fitness and recreation uses — might be adapted for important medical research.
Apple has begun studies on how its smartwatch can detect heart problems, and Fitbit has been working with about 500 different projects for research on cancer, diabetes, respiratory and other health issues.
Scientists said wearables can provide data on body temperature, heart and respiratory rates, sleep and activity patterns and other indicators, which can be used as diagnostic tools.
Researchers from Stanford University in April announced plans to participate in research on wearables, in collaboration with Scripps, for COVID-19 and other diseases.
“Smartwatches and other wearables make many, many measurements per day — at least 250,000, which is what makes them such powerful monitoring devices,” Stanford School of Medicine chair of genetics Michael Snyder said.
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RELATIONS: Cultural spats, such as China’s claims over the origins of kimchi, have soured public opinion in South Korea against Beijing over the past few years Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday met South Korean counterpart Lee Jae-myung, after taking center stage at an Asian summit in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s departure. The talks on the sidelines of the APEC gathering came the final day of Xi’s first trip to South Korea in more than a decade, and a day after his meeting with the Canadian prime minister that was a reset of the nations’ damaged ties. Trump had flown to South Korea for the summit, but promptly jetted home on Thursday after sealing a trade war pause with Xi, with the two
RSS