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Your smartphones can now detect COVID-19 in 30 seconds! BMC to roll out voice-based testing in Mumbai, here are details

In what comes as a notable leap in technological development, now our smartphones will also be capable of conducting a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) test. If successful, this is projected to greatly enhance the utility of the COVID-19 testing in India.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is now all set to launch the technological pilot project that will users record their voice samples in their respective smartphones and conduct a COVID-19 test in 30 seconds.

After achieving success in many European countries, the smartphone COVID-19 test project is now set to be available at India’s financial capital, Mumbai, as well.

How does the smartphone COVID-19 test work?

In this process, the patient will have to record their voice sample in a smartphone where a voice analysis app has been downloaded and installed.

With the help of internet servers, the app will then match the patient’s voice sample with the voices of millions of people who have tested negative for COVID-19 and whose samples will already be pre-loaded into the app.

The result of this test will appear in just 30 seconds. 

To achieve this incredulous feat, the voice analysis app takes the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI). According to the latest developments in data science, a human being’s voice consists of 6300 parameters. Based on this data, the AI will work and test the voice sample of the concerned potential COVID-19 patient.

What’s the science behind the smartphone-based COVID-19 voice test?

So what’s the science behind the smartphone-based COVID-19 voice test? According to researchers, whenever the human lungs are affected by a disease, their voices are the first to get affected. Even if the change is not perceivable in human ears due to aural limitations, a computer can easily work on the various parameters of the voice sample and decode any change in it. The science behind the smartphone-based COVID-19 voice test suggests that since coronavirus affects the lungs, the COVID-19 test will also evaluate effective results through voice samples.

Where will the smartphone COVID-19 test be available?

The technological pilot project of the smartphone-based COVID-19 voice test will be rolled out with 1,000 voice samples from the Nesco COVID-19 facility in Mumbai by the BMC.

The AI in the app will sample the 1,000 voices and if proven successful, the test will then also be available at a large-scale across hospitals and even on roadside testing facilities for the general populace.

Initially, the BMC will also conduct RT-PCR tests along with the smartphone-based voice testing just as a precaution to confirm the test results.

Source: dnaindia.com