Smartwatches can detect COVID-19 infection much before symptoms!

Bhubaneswar:  Smartwatches like Fitbit and Apple watches can detect COVID-19 infection before symptoms. Yes, you heard it right. As per a recent study,  Smartwatches like Fitbit and Apple may help detect COVID-19 infection in their users long before the symptoms begin to show up.

With a steep rise in COVID-19 infection among people, detecting it before its further spread is imperative now more than ever.  Under such circumstances, smartwatches have turned out to be more than just wearable devices for their users.

After running several studies, researchers have said wearable devices like Fitbit and Apple watches can detect potential COVID-19 infected people long before the symptoms appear as they are designed to monitor change in heart rate, respiratory rate, and other biometrics in their users. This could be quite instrumental in checking further spread of the lethal infection.

Professor Michael Snyder from Standford University School of Medicine was quoted saying the body of an infected person starts changing even before they realized.

To back the proposition, the team conducted a study on  5,000 people and recorded historical smartwatch data from 31 users, who had tested positive for COVID-19.  The smartwatch data revealed that the devices detected the infection around three days before the symptoms showed up.

Fitbit is now working on how its devices could help in early detection of the infection in its users.  Conor Heneghan, the lead research scientist at Fitbit said that changes in heart and breathing rate have been the major pointers in the detection process.