Can Health Sensors Help Prevent A Coronavirus Infection?

It has almost become a meme to state that your smartphone is more powerful than the computer aboard Apollo 11 that helped men land on the Moon. In fact, your phone probably boasts over 100,000 times the processing power of that computer. Now, even laptop chargers claim to be more powerful than Apollo 11’s computer…

The computer in your pocket or on your wall socket will not land you on the Moon any time soon, but these comparisons do help put technological progress into perspective. Considering that an Apple Watch can detect life-threatening conditions like atrial fibrillation, while a Fitbit could detect a woman’s pregnancy; it’s fair to ask that with all these advances in technology, can’t your wearable detect an infection like COVID-19?

This is exactly what certain tech companies are asking and they’ve teamed up with researchers to investigate the possibility. More than just detecting such an infection, wearables can more effectively monitor infected patients or even reveal previously unknown associations with COVID-19. Without further ado, let’s see what promise those tiny computers hold in the fight against the novel coronavirus.