Using artificial intelligence to diagnose COVID-19

For patients with COVID-19, terrifying shortness of breath can set in virtually overnight. In many cases, it's caused by an aggressive pneumonia infection in the lungs, which fills them with thick fluid and robs the body of life-giving oxygen. Detecting these severe cases early on is essential for treating them successfully. At the moment, however, the only way to tell whether a patient's pneumonia is caused by the coronavirus is by examining X-ray and CT scans of the chest--and as cases rack up worldwide, radiologists are being deluged with images, creating a backlog that may delay critical decisions about care. One solution, said Karen Panetta, may involve taking some of that workload away from humans.