Screening blood samples for COVID-19 using artificial intelligence

A promising new study published in the preprint online journal medRxiv in April 2020 shows the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) for developing a patient classifier that can separate patients likely to be negative for COVID-19 from among a pool of suspected patients visiting an emergency room (ER). This would reduce the rate of spread significantly, by making it possible to immediately separate the patients most likely to be positive from others with similar symptoms of respiratory illness. It would protect both patients and healthcare providers from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has spread across the world at unprecedented speed, placing a heavy and, in some cases, practically unsustainable, load on healthcare systems. Despite government aid, many healthcare providers find themselves requiring many more beds, intensive care units (ICU), and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) than can be provided.