New Delhi: Here is a new app that tells you whether you have COVID or not just by hearing your voice. The app, VocalisCheck is available both on the AppleiPhone and Android phones.
The app asks you to loudly count from 50 to 70 while that audio is recorded on your phone. The audio map is then transformed into a spectrogram, which looks a lot like a heat image. It is then compared with heat maps from the audio of COVID patients and you get a result, News18 reported.
The app has been developed by Vocalis Health, an Israeli tech company. It relies on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to match the characteristics of your voice to the database of samples already in place, to identify how much of a risk you are at, the report added.
India connection
The app has also been tested in India and returned with a greater than 80% accuracy rate. In February this year, Vocalis Health had conducted a clinical study jointly with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) at their NESCO COVID-19 Centre. The study included 2000 participants who recorded audio samples in English, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati, and the results returned with an accuracy rate of 81.2 percent, News18 reported.
The bad news
Here is why you can’t use the app.
News18 verified that the app for Android phones downloaded from Play Store requires a pre-registered login ID and password while the app for iPhone downloaded from the App Store isn’t working as expected and crashes at loading time.
The good news
The solution is primed for deployment by businesses and offices that may be resuming normalcy in operations with employees returning to work. Vocalis Health said was quoted as saying that employers can send regular check-in alerts to employees before they leave their homes, use their voice to submit a sample, and quickly get a result. Most screening methods in offices, such as using contactless temperature guns can be rendered ineffective in preventing the spread of the virus because it may take as long as two weeks for the symptoms to show for a patient. This app may just be very relevant at this time, with many countries including India witnessing a spike in COVID cases, again, the report added.
