Can COVID-19 trackers be used as wearable gadgets? Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health accepted this challenge and developed a wearable COVID-19 clip that can detect virus exposure. Although demonstrations say the gadget is effective, it is not yet publicly available.
Up to date, most COVID-19 tests need to be conducted in laboratories. This method is effective but would take some time to complete. Notably, most people cannot wait for such a roundabout method of COVID-19 checking.
For citizens to stay safe from outside exposure, especially when they wa, go to work or buy their groceries, they need an easy-to-use indicator to warn them about the COVID-19 virus.
A few researchers conceptualized this idea in the form of a wearable gadget. This led to the development of the COVID-19 clip.
How Does COVID-19 Clip Work?
According to their published study in the Environmental Science & Technology Letters, the Yale researchers called the gadget "a Polydimethylsiloxane-based passive air sampler" that can access personal exposure to SARS-CoV-2.
Researchers explained that infected individuals could exhale respiratory droplets and aerosols that carry the infectious virus. Their device can capture the virus-laden aerosols and reflect them on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surface.
The researchers admitted that there are many alternative sampling methods for COVID-19. However, the "cost, size and maintenance of these samplers" limit their utility on public usage.
On the other hand, their COVID-19 clip is much more user-friendly to the masses, where people can just clip it on their clothes and let the gadget do its work.
Note that their gadget is designed to be reusable with disposable polymer films. The researchers said this new gadget should be a complementary device to the at-home testing kits.
COVID-19 Clip Against Omicron Variant
Krystal Godri Pollitt, the leader behind the researcher team that developed the COVID-19 clip, told Fox News that the gadget was inspired by "measuring a person's exposure to environmental factors."
She said, "through that work, I developed wearable tools that we can measure our exposure to lots of different chemicals within the air and other airborne factors," per Fox News.
Pollitt also shared that when they designed the gadget, they wanted users to "start thinking about: do we need more infectious control measures in place, do we need less people in this space? Do we need more ventilation?"
Ideally, this gadget should be beneficial to high-risk individuals. People can use this gadget to check for COVID-19 exposure before deciding to quarantine or send out children and the elderly.
How to Get COVID-19 Clip
Unfortunately, the COVID-19 clip is still under research and is not yet available to the public. Researchers are testing if they can expand the clip's utility for other related respiratory viruses.
Researchers hope the COVID-19 clip will be available in the near future. However, this is not a guarantee that the gadget will be manufactured for public use.
