Technology today is truly outstanding. Someone has created an alarm that can detect coronavirus in the room. Aside from being totally incredible, it’s also very expensive.
The New Creation
British scientists have shared that they have made a ceiling-mounted coronavirus “alarm”. This alarm has the ability to detect the virus in any room within 15 minutes.
This highly accurate piece of technology is slightly larger than a smoke alarm. However, the scientists note that it could be used for screening in aircraft cabins, classrooms, care homes and offices. If the price can be subsidised or brought down, people will definitely buy it for homes.
How Does It Work?
The Coronavirus alarm works by detecting chemicals known as “volatile organic compounds”. These are produced by the skin of infected people or are present in the breath of people infected with Covid-19. The alarm is made to pick these up.
Their odour is too subtle for the human nose but it can be detected nonetheless. For instance, dogs can detect this smell too. Hence, now an alarm has been created to detect the smell.
Success Rate
It has already been installed in some schools. Said teams at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Durham University claim the device has an accuracy of 98%-100%.
If it truly is this successful, it would make this sensor as reliable as the PCR lab-based coronavirus tests widely used. If this alarm also works, this would be far quicker to single out infected patients than PCR tests being done across countries.
However, the researchers are stressing that these are early results. Their study has also been published in a paper but it has not yet been peer-reviewed and so, nothing can be said.
Another Version on The Horizon
The scientists behind this alarm are saying that the new machine which has been made by Cambridgeshire firm Roboscientific would be better. In other words, it can be more accurate and practical.
The million-dollar question is that if the alarm does detect coronavirus, how will it tell the person infected? The detectors will basically be able to find people with the virus even if they are asymptomatic. That is also why this alarm is more effective than PCR tests.
The alarms take 15-30 minutes to scan a large room and currently cost around £5,000 each.
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