Fitbit: Trackers identify nearly half of corona cases a day for symptoms

Fitbit claims in an early study report that in some of the coronavirus cases studied, it can identify the symptoms of the disease with its fitness trackers before the wearer has become symptomatic.

In the report, the American maker of wearables like the Versa and Charge states that breathing rate, resting heart rate and heart rate variability are useful variables to identify early stages of the coronavirus. These are measured when the user is sleeping in order to obtain an image with less ‘noise’.

The initial findings show that in almost half of the cases the virus can be identified one day before the onset of symptoms. In the most favorable cases, almost a week before the onset of physical complaints, these figures show that a user has the corona virus.

Determining the presence of the coronavirus before the user has complaints will not help him or her as much as other healthy people around them. Certainly the common symptom ‘coughing’ is of course a dangerous one, given the chance of spreading it. The earlier a Fitbit identifies the virus, the earlier the user can be quarantined, the less the virus will spread.

Fitbit detailed these initial findings in a blog post, and the report of the investigation to date has been submitted to an unnamed peer-reviewed scientific publication. Fitbit wants to write an algorithm that reliably identifies the virus before symptoms arise. The study has been running since May, with subjects from the US and Canada.