Some new studies conducted by a CBS News report indicates that smartwatches such as the Apple Watch can help detect COVID-19 before initiating symptoms or a positive test. The studies, conducted separately by Mount Sinai Health System in New York and Stanford University in California, give experts hope that the Apple Watch can help “play an important role in inhibiting the pandemic and other communicable diseases.”
Research conducted by Mount Sinai found that the Apple Watch can detect ‘subtle changes in an individual’s heartbeat’ up to seven days before the onset of COVID-19 symptoms or a positive test. The study analyzed the heart rate variation, or the variation in time between heartbeats, and included nearly 300 health professionals who wore Apple Watches between April 29 and September 29.
It is a common measure of the functioning of a person’s immune system.
“Our goal was to use tools to identify infections during infection or before people knew they were sick,” said Rob Hirten, assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City and author of the Warrior Watch, said study.
“We already knew that the change markers of the heartbeat change as inflammation develops in the body, and that Covid is an incredible inflammatory event,” Hirten told CBS MoneyWatch. “It allows us to predict that people are infected before they know it.”
“Right now we trust people to say they are sick and not feeling well, but wearing an Apple Watch does not require any active user input and can identify people who may be asymptomatic. It is a way to better control infectious diseases, ”Hirten said.
Meanwhile, a separate study from Stanford, the results of which were announced in November, included activity trackers from Garmin, Fitbit and Apple. The study found that these devices could indicate ‘up to nine and a half days before the onset of symptoms’ a resting heartbeat in coronavirus-positive patients.
The researchers were able to identify nearly two-thirds of the COVID-19 cases four to seven days before the symptoms, the study says.
The team also created an alarm system that warns wearers that their heart rate has been increased for a long period of time.
“We set the alarm with a certain sensitivity so that it goes off every two months,” said Michael Snyder, a professor at Stanford University who led the study. “Frequent fluctuations will not cause the alarm, but only significant and sustained changes.”
“This is a big problem because it warns people not to meet people,” he added. When Snyder’s alarm went off recently, for example, he canceled a personal meeting in case he could be contagious.
Snyder further explained that this type of technology can help compensate for the errors in the testing strategies. ‘The problem is that you can not do [testing] continuously on people, while these devices measure you 24/7, ”he explained.
Apple did not fund or participate in any of these studies, unlike other smartwatch and portable companies that commissioned similar studies, such as Oura Health and Whoop.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week released a model showing how the Apple Watch and other smartwatches can help limit the spread of COVID-19 by asymptomistc carriers.
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