Apple Watch, Fitbit May Help Spot Emerging Coronavirus Outbreaks

Initially, the makers of devices such as the Apple Watch, the Fitbit fitness tracker, and the Oura ring Hollmen wears played up their ability to help users count steps, stay active, or monitor sleep. It turns out these gadgets may also be useful in detecting illness. Scientists around the world are racing to discover if wearable technology can tell whether users have contracted coronavirus days before they have a dry cough or any other telltale indicators. In cases of Covid-19, changes to heart rate, for example, often appear before more noticeable symptoms, such as fever. Wearable devices could act as critical early warning systems, predicting and helping prepare for the next wave of a disease that has infected more than 8 million people globally.

“There’s an asymptomatic phase in individuals where people are infected by the virus, a three- to five-day period where there are no symptoms whatsoever,” says Dr. Ali Rezai, executive chairman of the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute. “What would you do with the information if you knew on your phone app that in three days there’s a 90% chance you’re going to have the symptoms?” You might stay home, he says, or take other steps to protect people around you.

Research has shown wearable data could discover health problems including high blood pressure, heart arrhythmias, and early-stage cancer. A study published in the Lancet Digital Health journal in January set the stage for using the same approach to anticipate the spread of Covid-19. It found that data from a Fitbit could predict the number of influenza-like illnesses in the general population as well as or better than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s epidemiological models. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, says that wearables could work even better for the coronavirus. “It has the advantage of being simple, continuous, and passive,” he says. “The virus isn’t going away. So we have to have a really good tracking system.”

Public-health officials are relying on testing programs, combined with contact tracing, to measure how widely outbreaks might spread. Fitness trackers, though, could do some of that work—and relieve the burden on budget-strapped states struggling to train tens of thousands of contact tracers.

For his research, Rezai and his colleagues recruited more than 800 health-care workers and first responders to wear the Oura ring and share the biometric data it collects through sensors touching the skin. Using an app, participants also take part in daily surveys that measure stress, anxiety, memory, and other indicators. From his office in Morgantown, W.Va., Rezai demonstrates how this information is analyzed, sharing an online dashboard with a reporter 2,600 miles away.

Sorted in varying hues of magenta and turquoise, cornflower and emerald, the screen gives an overview of how research subjects are feeling at any given moment, with the colors representing such data as different symptoms or subject groups. A word cloud shows the prevalence of signs ranging from cough and runny nose to fatigue and shortness of breath, while pie charts display Covid-19 cases by age and gender. A map homes in on regions of West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania and highlights symptoms by ZIP code. One area lights up in bright red, an indicator of a handful of potentially worrisome symptoms.

Projects like this are being carried out widely. Scripps Research Institute is monitoring the heart rates of about 30,000 volunteers with an array of fitness trackers to look for early signs of disease. A Stanford study is similarly measuring heartbeats among people who are exposed to Covid‑19 or are at high risk of contracting the disease. The University of California at San Francisco, meanwhile, initially armed 2,000 health-care workers with Oura rings, later opening the study to thousands of ring-wearing members of the general public.

Kimberly Noel is a physician who’s been taking part in the UCSF study for several weeks. A telemedicine specialist interested in how sensors can pick up information from the body, Noel also helped launch a similar research project at Stony Brook University. “The more people you have, the better,” she says. “It’s more than a pretty ring.”

The data is of limited use on an individual level; there are plenty of reasons for an elevated heart rate that have nothing to do with Covid-19. But when taken together, large numbers of data points can act as a smoke signal for disease.

Jennifer Radin, who leads the Scripps study, says wearables have the advantage of offering information that’s nearly real-time and more geographically specific than other disease projections. As additional data is collected, projections will only get better, allowing officials to act faster, she says.

Already, researchers have seen promising evidence of how the tracking might assist in predicting new outbreaks. The Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute says its platform can predict coronavirus-related symptoms as long as three days before they show up, with 90% accuracy. Michael Snyder, a Stanford geneticist who’s leading the university’s study, shared early results with Bloomberg Businessweek that showed heart rate anomalies were being detected at or before Covid-19 diagnoses 75% of the time in a 19-person group. In one instance, his team was able to predict infection nine days in advance. Heart rate is stacking up to be a very good indicator: “You can’t miss that signal,” he says.

Any added evidence would jump-start adoption of wearables, according to NPD Group analyst Eddie Hold. Las Vegas Sands Corp. plans to outfit 1,000 employees with Oura rings for illness-risk detection as casinos reopen. Although the segment has been growing in popularity over the past decade, only 1 in 5 adults uses a fitness tracker and fewer wear a smartwatch, Hold says. “If they can prove that one of these wearable devices can help,” he says, “it will be a huge boon.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.