Smart Watches Are Spotting COVID Before Symptoms Appear

These devices could be as far as seven days ahead.

Smart watches have become more advanced over the past few years, adding features that help assess a wearer’s health.

A new study suggests that wearables like Apple, Garmin and FitBit watches can actually predict a COVID diagnosis that’s even unknown to the user.

Researchers at Mount Sinai in New York say smart watches can detect subtle changes in the wearer’s heartbeat that are indicative of the coronavirus.

Detection of the changes could come as early as seven days before the wearer experiences physical symptoms of the virus.

One metric, heart variability, can be used as a measure of how well someone’s immune system is working.

Heart variability, which is the variation in time between heartbeats, changes as inflammation develops in the body, which is a hallmark of COVID-19.

Since the CDC believes half of COVID-transmission comes from asymptomatic carriers, researchers hope early detection via the use of smart watches could tame the spread.


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