U.K. and U.S. residents who reported a loss of smell and taste into a COVID-19 symptom-tracker app more often tested positive for the infection, according to a study published yesterday in Nature.

The COVID Symptom Study app was developed by health technology company Zoe Global with help from King’s College London and Massachusetts General Hospital. It launched in the U.K. and the U.S. in late March, and after three weeks had gained more than 2.6 million users.

By applying a predictive model incorporating these testing rates to the hundreds of thousands of users who reported symptoms without testing data, the researchers estimated that a little over 5% of those who downloaded the app "are likely to have COVID-19." However, the researchers cautioned that this is likely an overestimation due to a handful of factors, such as the use of self-reported symptom data.

TOPLINE RESULTS

A total of 2,6618,862 residents from the U.K. (n = 2,450,569) and U.S. (n =168,293) downloaded the free study app and reported potential COVID-19 symptoms. Of these, 15,638 from the U.K. and 2,763 from the U.S. paired their reported symptoms with the results of a RT-PCR SARS-CoV-2 test.

Source: www.mobihealthnews.com