Can a Smartwatch or a Fitness Tracker Detect Corona?

With the Pandemic taking a toll on lives, people are getting conscious of the concept of whether smartwatches can detect Corona or not? Well, to be frank, people would love their Smartwatches to tell them about the corona and it has been able to do it to a great extent! Smart wearable sensors are constantly giving details about temperature, blood oxygen levels, and heart rates that could be early signings of COVID detection. With COVID 19 spreading rapidly in the world, people are more into buying smartwatches with the hope of protecting themselves from this deadly virus!

How can wearables help in detecting Corona?

With so many wearable brands available in the market, each comes with different functions. Some can give the coughing rate concluding on the severity of the infection. Many studies have shown COVID 19 patients had coughing rates reaching 100 per hour. Fitbit is providing a two-fold aim detecting the outbreaks of COVID 19 and developing a warning feature by tracking the confluence of symptoms serving as early signs of the disease.

Now, if your wearable is giving you early signs, maybe it’s time to quarantine yourself for at least 3 days or it would be best if you go for the COVID test. Fitbit gives heart rate and an elevating heart rate can be related to the infection. It measures and records activities for identifying reduced levels of daily activities. Combining these two gives the researchers a better idea of the people having influenza like illness.

Body Temperature detection

Fever and cough are major symptoms of COVID 19 which can be detected by wearables also. However, only body temperature is not 100% predictive of the illness, so a fever alert could lead to the intervention and time to go for a test.

Tears and sweat

Researchers moving into the sensing technology have expanded the possibilities of wearables giving health monitoring facilities. Sensors are also created for detecting the virus in the sweat for the skin. These help in providing a lot about the person’s health. Glucose level, pH, Sodium levels, etc. are some things determined by sweat sensors. Tears can also contain the virus so researchers are in the process of creating something for detecting the virus through tears as well.

Now, you can see that most wearables can detect sweat rate acting as an indicator of temperature while all of these sensors are being examined for helping in the detection of COVID 19.

It is not directly possible to determine the exact illness by just wearing the smartwatch. But sudden changes in the heart and oxygen levels help in prompting people to isolate themselves and get the diagnostic tests done for reducing the spreading of communicable COVID 19 disease.

Conclusion

For all the wearables promising to tackle the problems of COVID 19 and other future pandemics, there are still barriers to the widespread use of it. Most of these wearables are expensive, not making it affordable for all. Keeping in mind the health of people in a global pandemic, these wearables must be made accessible to all for the care and benefit of society.