Study Finds Smartwatches Could Be Used To Detect COVID-19

Right now, there are basically two ways of testing someone to see if they might be infected with the coronavirus. The problem with these tests is that it requires you to go to a clinic or hospital and then you’ll have to wait for the results, but what if there was another way of potentially detecting the coronavirus from the comfort of your own home?

According to a recent study called the Warrior Watch, it has been suggested that our smartwatches might actually have the ability to detect whether or not we might be infected before the symptoms appear. Rob Hirten, assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City and author said, “Our goal was to use tools to identify infections at time of infection or before people knew they were sick.”

Speaking to CBS MoneyWatch, Hirten was quoted as saying, “We already knew that heart rate variability markers change as inflammation develops in the body, and Covid is an incredibly inflammatory event. It allows us to predict that people are infected before they know it.” This is done by looking at the wearer’s heart rate, where studies have shown that patients infected with the coronavirus experienced lower heart rate variability, meaning that there is little variation in the time between heart beats.

That being said, while this is by no means a definitive diagnosis, Stanford University professor Michael Snyder said, “The problem [with testing] is you can’t do it on people all the time, whereas these devices measure you 24/7. The smartwatch gives you back the data right away, in real time, whereas if you’re lucky you’ll get your test back in a few days.”

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Gadgets, Medical
Tags: Coronavirus, covid-19, Health, Smartwatch, Wearable Tech