In study conducted since start of pandemic, 68 per cent of Covid cases were successfully diagnosed two days before onset of symptoms A wrist-worn hea

Fertility tracker and AI used to identify Covid days before symptoms appeared

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2022-06-22 12:30:20

In study conducted since start of pandemic, 68 per cent of Covid cases were successfully diagnosed two days before onset of symptoms

A wrist-worn health tracker typically used for monitoring fertility could be used to diagnosis a Covid-19 infection days before symptoms appear, new research suggests.

Combined with artificial intelligence (AI), the tracker picks up on changes in skin temperature, heart and breathing rates, blood flow, as well as sleep quantity and quality to determine whether an individual has been infected with coronavirus.

According to the study, which followed 1,163 people under the age of 51 from the start of the pandemic, 68 per cent of Covid cases were successfully diagnosed two days before the onset of symptoms.

The researchers tested the AVA bracelet, a fertility tracker that people can buy online to track the best time to conceive, and wanted wanted to see if physiological changes, monitored by the tracker, could be used to develop a machine learning algorithm to identify an infection.

Participants in the study were asked to wear the AVA bracelet at night, with the device saving data every 10 seconds. People have to sleep for at least four hours for it to work.