Researchers develop smart watch for early detection of COVID-19

Recently, researchers from Stanford Medical School, USA, have developed an algorithm that helps a smart watch (smartwatch) to give early warning of COVID-19 infection. The study was published in the journal Nature Medicine on November 29.

Smart watches can provide biological data such as heart rate, steps, sleep and body temperature, and can monitor body condition regularly. Previous studies have shown these wearables can identify early signs of infectious diseases caused by bacteria such as Lyme disease or inflammatory respiratory diseases such as COVID-19.

The research team, led by Dr. Professor Michael Snyder, recruited thousands of volunteers to participate in research to develop this algorithm. According to Professor Michael, the most significant finding was that their algorithm was able to correctly diagnose 80% of COVID-19 infections even before the study participants developed the disease. Specifically, scientists tested 2,155 people using smartwatches such as Fitbit, Apple Watch or Garmin. The results showed that 84 of these people were diagnosed with corona virus and the smart watch gave an early warning to 67 of 84 people with COVID-19 (or about 80%) an average of 3 days before the symptoms. symptoms appear.

Snyder said that although this is a scientific study, he hopes that when approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), these devices will pioneer the field of early COVID diagnosis. -19.

'The idea of ​​the study is that people can use this warning information to decide if they need to get tested for COVID-19 or self-isolate,' Professor Snyder said. "We haven't achieved this yet, because we still need to test the algorithm in clinical trials, but that's the end goal."