A new home business tool 23andMe may be able to predict a person’s risk of developing a serious case of coronavirus.
The COVID-19 seriousness computer was only launched by Bloomberg on Wednesday.
The tool asks users to set their age, gender, ethnicity, weight, height, how often they exercise and whether they exercise have any existing conditions.
From there, the calculator tells how likely people with these characteristics were admitted to the hospital.
Click on the link here to find out how likely you are to be infected with the virus.
The COVID-19 serious computer was developed by the genetic testing company 23andMe and was launched on Wednesday
Users are asked to enter their age, gender, ethnicity, weight, height, how often they exercise and whether they have any conditions.
Based on data looking at 10,000 COVID-19 patients, the instrument shows how likely someone with the virus is to be hospitalized
For example, if you are a Spanish man in his 60s who is 5’2 ‘and weighs 150 kg with a fatty liver disease, the risk of hospitalization is about 22%
The data used by the calculator comes from a COVID-19 study 23andMe conducted with one million participants starting in April.
Of the total, 10,000 were tested positive for the disease and about 750 of them were admitted to the hospital.
Researchers then created an algorithm based on the data to determine the likelihood of hospitalization for different groups of people.
The calculator does not look at genetic factors that are transmitted from a parent, such as genetic mutations that lead to disorders such as sickle cell anemia or Down syndrome.
“We quickly published the results and looked for ways to benefit people more directly from the research,” Anne Wojcicki, co-founder and CEO of 23andMe, told Bloomberg.
“We have found that giving people practical information, such as this tool, produces meaningful results.”
These data were also the basis of a study 23andMe published in June and found that people with type O blood were up to 18% less likely to test positive for COVID-19.
For example, if you are a white woman in her 20s who weighs about 160 kilograms and is 5’7 “with high blood pressure, you have a one to five percent risk of being admitted to hospital with COVID-19.
But if you are an African-American man in his 40s who weighs 210 pounds, is 5’11 ‘and has type 2 diabetes, the risk is about 13 percent.
In addition, the risk of hospitalization is about 22 percent if you are a Spanish man in his 60s who weighs 5’2 ‘and weighs 150 pounds with a fatty liver disease.
After years of growing revenue, people stopped buying DNA test kits, which led to 23andMe laying off 100 employees, or about 14 percent of its workers, in January 2020, CNBC reported.
Wojcicki told Bloomberg that the company hopes to become more valuable by providing its customers with helpful health information. ‘
“More than 75 percent of our customers told us they had taken a positive health action based on their 23 and Me results,” she told the news organization.
This calculator is not the only work the company has done to analyze the COVID-19 risk.
In June 2020, the company published preliminary data suggesting that a certain blood type may help protect people against coronavirus.
Results showed that those with type O blood were up to 18 percent less likely to test positive for COVID-19.
In addition, oeioke that had the blood type and were exposed were up to 26 percent less likely to contract the disease.
Researchers have identified a variant in the ABO gene, which is responsible for different blood groups, that is associated with a lower risk.
“The study and recruitment continues, with the hope that we can use our research platform to better understand differences in how people respond to the virus,” reads a statement on the 23andMe blog.
“Ultimately, we hope to publish our research findings to provide more insight into COVID-19 to the scientific community.”