Smart watches can detect symptoms of COVID-19 before the user knows they are infected

A team of researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine on Mount Sinai found evidence to suggest that smart watches can detect the symptoms of COVID-19 before a person realizes he is infected. On its website, the Mount Sinai team describes the test of 297 healthcare professionals looking at data from their Apple Watches.

One of the first signs of COVID-19 infection is inflammation in infected areas of the body. And when the inflammation starts, the body responds by slightly altering blood flow. This change in blood flow can be seen in small changes in a person’s heartbeat, detectable through smart watches like Apple’s. By observing a person’s heartbeat for long periods of time, a smart watch can determine a normal baseline for the person wearing it. And when there is a sudden prolonged change, such as sustained heart rate variability, the device can also detect that. In the Mount Sinai test, volunteers were asked to wear the smart watch full time and also to install a watch app that specifically looked for sustained changes in their heart rate. The researchers found that the clocks were able to identify two-thirds of people who were infected on average seven days before the volunteers noticed any symptoms.

CBS News recently analyzed the findings of the Mount Sinai team and another study at Stanford University, as well as other companies that investigated whether their smart watches could work in a similar way. They found that, for the most part, the answer was yes, smart watches can often detect a COVID-19 infection up to a week before the onset of symptoms. They further noted that engineers can make apps for smart watches to alert the user, who can then quarantine themselves until testing. And that, they note, may well slow the spread of the current pandemic and those that may occur in the future.

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