Shortly after the covid-19 pandemic closed the world last year, many wearable manufacturers and researchers announced studies to see if their technology could help detect the virus before it spreads. Ava, a clothing company for tracking fertility, launched a particularly ambitious study in which 2,000 Liechtenstein citizens used the company’s trackers to see if the device could detect obscure symptoms before they appeared. Now Ava has announced that the company is launching another study to see if its tracker can detect pre-symptomatic covid-19 in real time. But with the vaccine now more widely available and the end of blockages in sight, what does it really mean to continue this type of research?
One of the biggest problems with the detection of covid-19 is the fact that a person can spread the virus before they even realize they are sick. Wearable devices, which are able to collect data 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a long period of time, seem as a natural platform for researchers looking to learn more about covid-19 and contain its spread. Ava’s first collaboration with Liechtenstein researchers found that an algorithm can accurately detect 70% of positive covid-19 infections up to seven days before symptoms appear.
This is cool, but this feature is not exclusive to Ava. The West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI) launched preliminary research several months ago, that he could detect covid-19 symptoms up to three days before they appeared, with a 90% accuracy rate. (The sample size was too small.) Whoop also published a peer-reviewed article saying its recovery tracker can be used to detect covid-19 infections based on drops in users’ breathing rate while sleeping. Hell, even Fitbit is doing your own study. The fact is that most of these studies were trying to see if early detection was feasible. There is a gap between “this can work” and “this is how it will be used in real life”.
What makes Ava’s new study remarkable is the fact that he is taking the algorithm he built and testing its effectiveness in real time and in the real world. Basically, this is the next step to take this type of predictive technology out of the lab and place it on consumers’ wrists.
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For the new study, Ava plans to provide a tracker to more than 20,000 participants of all genders in general and high-risk populations. They will then use the Ava tracker for up to nine months at night while sleeping, and in the morning, they can see an AI-generated health indicator: “no changes”, “small changes, stay home and isolate yourself” and “changes that can signal covid-19.” Asymptomatic participants will also take a diagnostic test, if the app identifies them as potentially sick.
Another interesting rumor is that, as Ava is a fertility tracker, the company trained the algorithm with data from almost 500 women who reported infection on the app. These data were then extrapolated to non-female individuals. This is significant because, for the vast majority of medical history, it has been the other way around.
“Although historically medical research has been based on data and research using male participants and then generalized to women, we are reversing the script at Ava – first understanding female physiology and then adapting algorithms to generalize to the entire population,” Ava founder and CEO, Lea von Bidder said in a statement.
Still, even if this turns out to be an effective test, the study will not end until November. At that point, most people should have received the covid-19 vaccine. Unfortunately, this is a case where necessary. Rigorous clinical tests are sometimes not fast enough to deal with current events while they are happening – even if there is regulatory help to speed up the process.
Take the case of the US Food and Drug Administration. In the beginning, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization (USA) to help speed up the release of technology that could help fight covid-19. This does not mean that accelerated technology will magically find its way into the market. It took until March 19 for the FDA grant authorization for the Tiger Tech COVID Plus Monitor. The device itself is a non-diagnostic screening tool used on the arm that uses light sensors to check for “biomarkers”. Hypercoagulation – or blood clotting easier than normal – has been identified as a common abnormality in cases of covid-19. The device itself must be used in conjunction with temperature screening, a kind of backup method, to limit the spread in public environments such as hospitals, schools, offices, theme parks, stadiums and airports. This technology would be great to reopen, but it is also unclear how the Tiger Tech device would be used in the coming months. It is possible that you will never see one, despite the FDA releasing the device to the market.
Ultimately, these efforts are still worthwhile, if not for this pandemic, then the next flu outbreak or any infectious virus that decides to wreak havoc. It is very possible that the lessons learned from covid-19 can easily be applied to other infectious diseases. We can only wait.