Many of us always have them on the wrist – we use them to answer calls, to take a selfie, to monitor the heart beat and the calories consumed during a race. But smartwatches may not be just an object to show off for the most technological: according to a study published on Pnas Nexusthese so widespread devices could even help us to defeat the next pandemic. As? Helping us to detect the signs that something does not go even before the insoriest of the symptoms of a disease.
Early diagnosis. Any smartwatch manages to predict with an accuracy of 88% – measuring parameters such as breathing, heartbeat or skin temperature – if we have contracted Covid even before the first symptoms arise. Precision rises to 90% for the flu. “Wearable devices are very effective when it comes to identifying the very first physiological signals of an infection,” underlines Märt Vesinurm, one of the authors.
Preventive insulation. Considering that, on average, people reduce social contacts of 66-90% when they know they are sick, The impact on the spread of a virus would be really significant if we knew in advance to be contagious: “Even just a 66-75% reduction in social contacts after the” diagnosis “carried out by the smartwatch would lead to a decrease of 40-65% in the transmission of the disease, compared to when the isolation takes place after the onset of the first symptoms”, explains Vesinurm.
If even more people were reduced to contacts with friends and family, as happened during the Pandemia from Covid, it would actually be possible to block the circulation of the disease in the bud, de facto, in fact, a possible pandemic.
More help. Although they are not by diagnostic devices, smartwatches could help make some approaches such as the use of invasive masks and tests more targeted, and to make us adopt as soon as possible preventive measures – avoiding, for example, to visit the elderly and poor people. According to Vesinurm in the future, the same governments could be, in a pandemic situation, to decide to provide those who want a smartwatch to monitor their health.
