Do you think you have COVID-19? ResApp will help you detect it without PCR tests

app movil diagnostica covid-19 con ia

Can you imagine a world in which you completely pass PCR and antigen tests to detect COVID-19? We are not there yet, but it seems that we are closer to it thanks to ResApp, an application capable of detecting COVID-19 with 92% accuracy .

Cough into your phone and RessApp will tell you if you have COVID-19

resapp detecta covid-19 con el movil

Yes, what you just read probably sounds like a sci-fi story, but according to the Daily Mail it is true. ResApp is a mobile application that uses machine learning to analyze your cough and determine if it may be associated with COVID-19 or another type of respiratory disease.

It is an app that is still under development and has not yet been launched, but Pfizer has already offered 74.3 million dollars for it (about 68.3 million euros), so it must have some truth.

To test its effectiveness, 741 patients in the United States and India tested the app by coughing into a mobile phone that had it installed. Of them, 446 were infected with COVID-19 and the application detected 92% of the cases .

Meanwhile, another trial gathered 1,007 patients with respiratory problems not associated with COVID-19 (such as asthma, pneumonia, infections, etc.). The objective? Verify if the application was capable of differentiating cough from other conditions from that caused by Sars-CoV-2. The result was impressive, because he was right in 90% of the cases.

ResApp seems miraculous, but there may be a trick

resapp diagnostico covid-19 con smartphone

After reading the above, you probably think that it is impossible for an application to be able to offer such accurate results. Yes, the effectiveness of the application seems crazy , although it shows how far artificial intelligence can go in certain fields.

However, there may be a little trick inside ResApp that helps with diagnosis. It turns out that ResApp asks users to first fill out an entire medical form with symptoms and such. After that, the cough test is performed.

Thus, the application has prior information that allows it to rule out certain conditions and point to a smaller circle of options. When the test runs, the ResApp AI kicks in and finishes confirming a possible diagnosis. It’s not magic, it’s discarding and artificial intelligence, although it’s still great.

ResApp is designed for spaces where rapid COVID-19 tests are common

resapp casos de uso

The ResApp development team believes that their app could be really useful to replace rapid COVID-19 tests in certain scenarios. Specifically, they mentioned environments such as sports, entertainment, tourism and even the health system. Catherine Bennett, a member of ResApp’s COVID-19 scientific advisory board, stated the following:

“By quickly ruling out COVID-19, ResApp would significantly reduce the number of rapid antigen and PCR tests that need to be administered, while maintaining disease surveillance, which is necessary to manage the ongoing impact of COVID-19.”

We don’t know when ResApp will hit the mobile market , but ResApp CEO Tony Keating said his company intends to speed it to market. In addition, he announced that this process will involve different regulatory entities from around the world, something that generates greater confidence in the app.

By the way, we do not know if ResApp will have a section that allows you to store your COVID-19 certificate digitally. That, or at least validate that it is real. However, it is still a very interesting application.