These COVID-sniffing dogs have such a high rate of detecting COVID cases by sniffing masks at the Miami International Airport -- 98% -- that the program may soon be put into more common practice.
trees and kills them, costing Florida growers millions. With that expertise under their collars, the two dogs need only a few weeks to get good at detecting other smells assigned to them.. In battling the viruses, people produce certain chemicals that they exhale every time they breathe. When Furton and his colleagues compared the exhaled components trapped in the masks, they found differences between masks from people with COVID and those without.
Each time the dogs accurately selected a mask from a COVID patient, their reward was access to a favorite toy: a red ball to chew on. Although all four dogs performed very well, yes, they did, Cobra and One Betta showed the most accuracy, outperforming their training colleagues. From their training scores, Cobra ranked first, with 99.45% accuracy. Despite her name, says Furton, One Betta was"not one better," coming in second at 98.1%, which is still quite high.
From Aug. 23 to Sept. 8, the two canines screened 1,093 people during 8 working days, alerting on only one case, according to Greg Chin, communications director for the Miami-Dade Aviation Department. That person had tested positive for COVID 2 weeks earlier and was returning to work afterFurton says that there are some reports of dogs also alerting before tests can show a positive result, suggesting the dogs’ odor detection can be more precise.
As promising as this seems, using dogs for screening carries some logistical and ethical tangles. Training a canine army to deploy for high-volume detection points means that once the work is done, a whole lot of dogs will need a safe place to retire. In addition, the initial training takes several months, says Furton, whereas if a device were developed for screening, manufacturing could likely be ramped up quickly to meet demand.
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