Leveraging Wearable Technology to Predict COVID-19 Risk

Many people experience an increase in respiratory rate prior to any other symptoms of COVID-19..COVID-19 is a lower respiratory tract infection. The infected cells are the alveoli, the point of contact in your lungs to your blood. As they get damaged, your ability to get oxygen into the blood and get carbon dioxide out becomes less efficient. In order to compensate, you have to take more breaths.”

VALUE OF KNOWING YOUR BASELINES IN A TIME OF PANDEMIC

With the pandemic seemingly resurging and cold and flu season on the way, it becomes of even greater importance. It’s also worth noting that unlike COVID-19 (which is a lower respiratory tract infection) the flu and seasonal allergies generally impact tissues in your upper respiratory tract and do not cause major fluctuation in respiratory rate.

Given that COVID-19 impairs and damages the respiratory system , it is reasonable to suggest that changes in respiratory efficiency–and therefore resting respiratory rate–might occur in the early stages of infection. In this context, noninvasive daily monitoring of respiratory rate may be used to detect subclinical intraindividual deviations and identify potential infections that would otherwise be overlooked by clinical thresholds ..

There is still more work to be done–the data we’ve been able to collect so far has been limited to symptomatic cases, so follow up research is required to understand if respiratory rate monitoring can aid in the detection of fully asymptomatic cases. Additionally, global shortages of testing limited the number of COVID-19 tested samples available for algorithm development and validation, as COVID-19 tests become more available we will continue to collect data and anticipates having access to more COVID-19 verified samples with which to refine this algorithm.

NON-INVASIVE, EARLY DETECTION

The finding that respiratory rate may deviate from baseline before we start to feel sick means it can potentially be leveraged to help keep others safe, by letting infected people know they might be capable of spreading COVID-19 so that they can socially distance.

COVID-19 is actually most contagious in the 2 days before symptom onset. A common option many companies are exploring as they build out return-to-work strategies is to screen for fevers at the door and send home employees with elevated temperatures.

Such an approach would likely be effective in removing some contagious employees from the workplace, but by definition is at the earliest catching people at symptom onset and therefore after contagiousness has already started to go down. On top of that, taking someone’s temperature at work means that they have already commuted into work and been in contact with colleagues and others, which increases the likelihood of spreading the virus.

“For the first time, we have shown that elevated respiratory rate, when compared to an individuals’ normal baseline, can be used to discriminate in some cases between people who test positive for COVID-19 and those who test negative,”.

For More Information Check Out This Link

https://www.espn.com/.../could-your-smartwatch-detect...

Do you know your numbers....

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Please Remember Healy Watch is intended to support vitality and well-being, and is not a substitute for medical advice, which can only be provided by a medical professional. The Healy Watch is not intended to diagnose COVID-19 or any other disease, and should not be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content available through the products and services of HEALY is for general informational purposes only.