Can COVID-19 be detected through a cough?

As the days go by, the pandemic continues to cause damage around the world. Many countries have made the decision to go into lockdown once again, a decision with far-reaching consequences for small business owners and other sectors.

In an article published in the IEEE (Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology), an MIT team indicated that it was about to set up a system to detect people who have contracted Covid-19.

Detecting COVID-19 through coughing?

The Independent writes that an MIT team is developing:

... an Artificial Intelligence model that distinguishes asymptomatic people from healthy individuals thanks to... forced cough recordings.

To do this, American researchers are collecting online beta testers. They are asking volunteers to record themselves coughing with their phone or with their computer.

MIT researchers want to compare ‘healthy’ coughs with sick coughs. As the Independent reports:

the differences between the coughs of asymptomatic people and those of healthy people are not perceptible to the ear but can be detected by artificial intelligence.

According to the American study, out of tens of thousands of cough samples, artificial intelligence accurately identified 98.5% of the coughs of people who had contracted COVID-19. This is a big medical breakthrough, which will hopefully be implemented in the coming months.

Of course, coughing isn't the only COVID-19 symptom. Click here to find out more about the new frightening symptom, COVID toes.