Coming out of lockdown could a calculation based on FITBITS level of fitness be used to detect infection/viral illness before the person experiences symptoms, so that people can mix in small groups, if they have a low infection risk status?
FITBIT estimates a level of fitness which looks at a person’s profile ie age/weight/ resting heart rate and estimation of the VO2 Max (the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use when you’re working out at your hardest)
Now 2 years ago I caught a really bad Flu (Australian Flu was going around)
I noticed that while this was happening my measure of cardio fitness dropped from excellent to average/fair) which was quite dramatic and my resting pulse climbed
It took me 2 months to return to normal status.
But after that I watched my resting pulse rate and it raises in response to infection.
Their is lots of research to back this up, the Royal of Physicians use physiological measurements to determine the severity of illness
This idea builds on the way we’ve used the National Early Warning Score NEWS (to identify deterioration, to help us see infection using our watches to identify small changes in pulse/activity.
The research is all ready taken place, but I feel scientists might not have noticed/gathered relevant data.
Oxford Uni has developed an APP called COVID symptom tracker where people record what they are noticing. i.e. cough/ fatigue / loss of sense of smell.
The type of people who'd respond to this, are likely to be interested in their own health, and may indeed wear smart watches/fitbits. So I wonder the researchers could crossreference data and see what comes first.
Physiological changes/symptoms
This research is linked to COVID tracking app but this relies on a test result and we don't have enough tests.
Could a solution lie in a symptom tracker in conjunction with the level of fitness measure (only rebranded to read bodies likelyhood responding to infection rating) low (no detected changes to high severve changes detected) ?
I work with domiciliary care workers, these workers go into people homes and will carry the infection to customers, we need to identify staff with few symptoms quickly and remove them.
We need research, looking for partners to submit of bid.
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