Could a virtual Bluetooth virus help us track COVID-19 more accurately?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-03-13 03:00

Australia; International

Corona_virus_Covid-19_FC By HFCM Communicatie - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

A virtual virus that spreads anonymously between our phones via Bluetooth could help provide more accurate estimates of COVID-19 infections, according to US and Aussie researchers. They developed the 'Safe Blues' program because estimates of COVID-19 infections are affected by the lag between people catching the disease and getting it diagnosed, which can take more than a week. Using artificial intelligence to compare 'Safe Blues' infections with the latest real-world data on COVID-19 could allow us to more accurately assess infection levels and COVID-19 spread, they say.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research Cell Press, Web page The URL will go live after the embargo ends

Journal/
conference: Patterns

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of Queensland, The University of Melbourne, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Funder: H.M.J. and Y.N. are supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) under grant no. DP180101602. S.M. and P.G.T. are supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers (ACEMS) under grant no. CE140100049. S.G.H. is supported by the Army Research Office under grant no. W911NF-17-1-0094 and the National Science Foundation under grant no. TRIPODS+X DMS-1839346.

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.