A new morning routine

Pitt research team developing mobile app to screen for symptoms

Right after rolling over to turn off the alarm clock in the morning, most people reach for their smartphone.

Now, a University of Pittsburgh researcher wants to add another task to the daily smartphone routine: Check for COVID-19.

Scroll through Twitter. Read a few emails. Open another app, and do a quick COVID check. Get out of bed, and brush your teeth.

“Just like every morning, you get up, stand up on a weight scale or take your temperature readings. ... It’s pretty much like a daily task that people can do conveniently every morning,” said Wei Gao, a professor in Pitt’s engineering department and the lead researcher on this project.

The application, which is still in the development phase and not yet released to the public, uses sound waves to determine the likelihood the user is infected with the novel coronavirus.

Using a mouthpiece inserted into a smartphone, an individual breathes normally into the piece while the phone’s speaker releases sound waves. Those sound waves get reflected through the human airways and sent back to the phone.

The system then looks for biomarkers, or indicators, of COVID-19 in the user’s airways, like mucus or inflammation, Mr. Gao said.

The system’s software is trained on the difference of “airway mechanics” between a healthy person and a patient who has been diagnosed with COVID-19. That training is done before the app is distributed to users, Mr. Gao said. So, as a user, there is no setup required.

The application, which is tentatively called AWARE (Acoustic Waveform Respiratory Examination), is an “early-stage self-evaluation” and should not replace a medical test, he said.

Ultimately, the app would give users a “risk score” to help determine their next actions. Green means no need to worry. Yellow means be a little more cautious and maybe take a day off. Red means it’s time to go to the doctor.

“The point here is that we try to eliminate those easy false positives [from COVID-19 tests], so that we can prevent these guys from going to the hospital,” Mr. Gao said.

Just like Mr. Gao and his team, a lot of researchers are turning to smartphones as a tool to help solve problems related to COVID-19,

from screening for symptoms to tracking the spread of the virus.

The University of Nebraska released a screening app in May that assesses risk based on a user’s symptoms, recent travel, geographic location and medical history. UnitedHealth Group, a medical company based in Minnesota, teamed up with Microsoft to release an app that conducts daily symptom screenings for workers at any company using the platform to determine if they should go in to the office that day.

Though not a mobile application, Carnegie Mellon University researchers designed a digital, at-home screening test that uses a voice recording to determine the risk of COVID-19.

The system, which users can access online, prompts individuals to follow a series of actions, like reciting the alphabet and counting to 20. Similarly to Mr. Gao’s approach, the system then looks for biomarkers that could indicate a COVID-19 infection.

Most of these screening tests are not meant to be used as diagnostic tools or definitive medical advice. Rather, they are meant to equip the user with more information, act as a first line of defense and take some burden off medical workers.

“People are dying every day. The death toll is climbing . ... The sooner these things are out there — it doesn’t matter how small a difference they’ll make; they’ll make a difference,” Rita Singh, the CMU professor working on the voice recording system, told the Post-Gazette in April.

While smartphones have become useful tools for unprecedented problems spurred by COVID-19, new apps that collect personal health information and location data have raised privacy concerns among some groups.

To protect user’s privacy, Mr. Gao said the data is encrypted and the system will not ask for a user’s identity.

The Pitt project received funding in May through the National Science Foundation’s rapid response research grants, which support studies that help develop strategies for addressing COVID-19 at the local, state and national levels.

The AWARE application is still in the early stages, Mr. Gao said. The technology is still being “verified,” meaning the researchers are testing the system on things like 3D-printed models rather than on human beings.

In the fall, healthy volunteers will try it out. By early next year, Mr. Gao hopes the researchers will start testing the system on patients with COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases.

Mr. Gao and his team are still working to overcome one hurdle: designing a tool that works for everyone.

Human lungs are all different, he said. Some people have longer airwaves than others. Young people may have airways that are more elastic, while older people tend to be more rigid. In order to accurately test for COVID-19 indicators, the system must account for all these natural differences.

“All these factors will affect the propagation,” Mr. Gao said. “This raises a challenge. We have to make sure our system is one fits all.”