This AI system listens to coughs to learn where the coronavirus is spreading

A new AI-powered system monitors coughing sounds to understand where the coronavirus is spreading. It then analyzes the data to predict the progress of COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases. These insights could guide public health responses to the pandemic, such as the allocation of medical supplies, travel restriction, and vaccine campaigns. "I've been interested in non-speech body sounds for a long time," said researcher Tauhidur Rahman, an assistant professor of computer and information sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I thought if we could capture coughing or sneezing sounds from public spaces where a lot of people naturally congregate, we could utilize this information as a new source of data for predicting epidemiologic trends.