COVID-19 tracking app may not be good predictor

Researchers have now indicated that tracking symptoms affiliated with the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) through an app may not be a good predictor of the spread of the disease. Over the course of 2020, as the Covid-19 has spread across the globe causing extensive illness and economic havoc to communities everywhere, health care providers and the general public have been eager to find a way to identify the illness.
“In the absence of readily available tests, scientists have worked to identify clues to detect those who might have the illness as a way to combat the spread of the virus,” said study authors from Oxford University Press in the UK.
A recent study, published in Nature Medicine journal, suggested that a prediction score combining loss of smell and taste, fatigue, cough, and loss of appetite – collected through an app – was able to prospectively identify people at risk of Covid-19.
For the current findings, the research team here compared the main features of the population involved in the Nature Medicine study, and the performance of their score, with data from a cross-sectional study conducted between March 24 and April 29, 2020, and applied the Nature Medicine model to these data. (IANS)