An app could catch 98.5% of all Covid-19 infections. Why isn't it available?
The world wasn’t prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic – and it still isn’t. Critical shortages of personal protective equipment and ventilators continue to put medical professionals and patients at unnecessary risk. Meanwhile, long wait times for test results contribute to viral spread.
Yet throughout this year, promising scientific innovations have been developed that could help reduce deaths until everyone can get the vaccine. So why aren’t they available?
A Covid test on your smartphone
In late September, researchers at MIT announced that they had developed an algorithm that can accurately detect Covid-19 infections over the phone.
When participants in their study produced a forced cough, MIT said their AI algorithm successfully detected 98.5% of Covid-19 infections with patients who have a cough and 100% of asymptomatic cases.
If released in the form of an app, the technology could mean instant Covid-19 testing anytime, any place.
As they wrote in their peer-reviewed article: “AI techniques can produce a free, non-invasive, real-time, anytime, instantly distributable, large-scale Covid-19 asymptomatic screening tool to augment current approaches in containing the spread of Covid-19. Practical use cases could be for daily screening of students, workers and public as schools, jobs and transport reopen, or for pool testing to quickly alert of outbreaks in groups.”
The impact of this technology would be huge. Currently, test results can take a week to be processed. Testing delays and shortages are due to things like strains on the supply chain providing swabs and chemicals, as well as the pressures on lab technicians processing high volumes of tests. And the test only tells you if you were positive at the time, not whether you are positive now, which can lead to a false sense of security.
A smartphone- based, instant Covid-19 test would be a game changer and would save countless lives. The developers say they intend to make the technology available as an app, pending regulatory approval, but there is no clear timeline for when it might be released to the public. (The team did not respond to a request for comment.)
A reusable N95 mask
We are all aware of the severe shortage of N95 masks – the gold standard mask for protecting people from viruses like Covid-19 – which have led to countless doctors and nurses dying because of a lack of personal protective equipment.
The reason for the shortage? Strain on the supply chain producing the melt-blown masks that relies on expensive equipment to produce.
In July, a group of researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s hospital received a flurry of media attention for their invention of a reusable, silicone-based N95 mask able to withstand repeated sterilization with high temperatures and bleach, making it ideal for hospital settings. This mask, which requires much less material than the standard N95 mask, could be easily manufactured in the United States. And, unlike the standard N95s, could be reused 100 times. (By the end of 2020, 3M will have manufactured 2bn N95 respirators to meet need, which will only worsen our plastic pollution crisis. A reusable mask would help avoid the mountain of waste that could end up in our oceans or our air after incineration.)
According to Adam Wentworth, a research engineer working on the mask, they are still fundraising to create the final prototype. Whenever the fundraising is complete – there is no fixed deadline – they would have to submit it for approval by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. This is a process that could take around six months, even with emergency prioritization.
At this point, a Covid-19 vaccine is projected to become widely available before the mask does. By time it does. the pandemic may likely be over.
Sewage testing for early-detection
We know that people infected with Covid may carry the virus asymptomatically for two weeks before realizing they are sick. That means early detection methods are essential to mitigating spread.
In May, Stat News, a medical news site, reported that testing sewage provided a promising way to detect Covid-19 cases a week early. And shortly after, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands announced they would start sewage surveillance as a way to spot Covid-19 cases. Senator Dianne Feinstein in July urged the Department of Health and Human Services to implement this technology on a national scale; however, adoption in the US has been slow.
Several universities, including MIT, are already using wastewater testing to stay ahead of outbreaks on campus – the method helped successfully stem an outbreak at a University of Arizona dorm in August – but most communities are still not benefiting from a simple and effective early-detection tool that is proven to work.
We know that we are entering the deadliest phase of the pandemic, with cases and fatalities exceeding previous peaks in the spring. With vaccines now being rolled out in the UK, China, Russia and other countries at record speed, the question is whether any of these technologies will be employed when they are most critical – namely now – or whether they will become widespread only as we emerge out of this global pandemic. One hopes that “warp speed” might not be limited to the vaccine but other technologies, too. But it doesn’t look promising.