Okay, how awesome would it be if hundreds (thousands?) of dogs were trained to check our breath every morning before we were allowed to go into work/school/etc? UPDATED - will be used at the Helsinki airport

"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction) 07/28/2020 at 16:30 • Filed to: None

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Researchers at the Veterinary Faculty of the University of Helsinki have been training dogs to be able to detect COVID-19 since early 2020. In May, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that it had successfully trained dogs to detect COVID-19 in urine samples. But progress has happened fast. Now, the dogs have been trained to detect COVID-19 from sweat on our skin and have started trial testing at the Helsinki Airport.

According to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , these canine s need as little as 10 molecules to detect COVID-19, while current test equipment requires 18,000,000. And there’s no comparison of speed. Abbot Labs has a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Dogs can detect COVID-19 more or less instantly, and without !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

The screening process won’t be as simple as letting passengers walk by while a dog casually sniffs, however. Instead, passengers will be instructed to rub their skin with a wipe, then drop the wipe into a cup. The dog will sniff this cup inside an isolated booth. This arrangement allows for anonymous processing that protects a person’s privacy, while shielding the handler from direct contact with a potentially infected passenger. Any passenger who is suspected of having COVID-19 will be directed to the airport’s health information area.

The Helsinki program will soon employ four dogs but could expand to as many as 22 as enough canines are trained for the task. And while it’s unclear if the idea will scale beyond one airport— !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! would be another excellent use case of such dogs, according to researchers—it makes for a fascinating case study on how we don’t necessarily need more technology to screen for COVID-19 when 130,000 years of domesticated canine evolution is already on our side.

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Background

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, early, ideally real-time, identification of SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals is pivotal in interrupting infection chains. Volatile organic compounds produced during respiratory infections can cause specific scent imprints, which can be detected by trained dogs with a high rate of precision.

Methods

Eight detection dogs were trained for 1 week to detect saliva or tracheobronchial secretions of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients in a randomised, double-blinded and controlled study.

Results

The dogs were able to discriminate between samples of infected (positive) and non-infected (negative) individuals with average diagnostic sensitivity of 82.63% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 82.02–83.24%) and specificity of 96.35% (95% CI: 96.31–96.39%) . During the presentation of 1012 randomised samples, the dogs achieved an overall average detection rate of 94% (±3.4%) with 157 correct indications of positive, 792 correct rejections of negative, 33 incorrect indications of negative or incorrect rejections of 30 positive sample presentations.

Conclusions

These preliminary findings indicate that trained detection dogs can identify respiratory secretion samples from hospitalised and clinically diseased SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals by discriminating between samples from SARS-CoV-2 infected patients and negative controls. This data may form the basis for the reliable screening method of SARS-CoV-2 infected people.

Chan - Mid-engine with cabin fever > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 16:37

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Damn, I like this.

MonkeePuzzle > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 16:38

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having had my dog’s face near my face in a morning, I don’t think she’s qualified to judge breath

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 16:38

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They’re good dogs

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MonkeePuzzle 07/28/2020 at 16:40

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Ha!

Dr_Watson > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 16:46

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Yeah, I’d read before about dogs who can sniff out lung cancer. I was thinking it would be cool if someone trained them to do SARS-CoV-2. Nice to see that worked out. Dog noses are amazing. They have a whole extra piece on their brain for scent processing.

Blowing in a dog’s face is way better than having a probe jammed up your nose. 

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 07/28/2020 at 16:47

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Man, actually though, t1 and t2 errors were about 3%. What error rates are we seeing with traditional testing?

WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 16:52

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Sounds great in theory, but wouldn’t work.

I’d just start playing with the dog, then miss work entirely.

MonkeePuzzle > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 16:52

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bad dog! put that down!

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My bird IS the word > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 16:54

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Makes you wonder how many problems could be averted if we could smell that well.

Tekamul > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 16:59

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There are 56 million students in the US. That would require an entire breeding program, likely negated by a vaccine.

It is a good demonstration for more general dog skills in detection though.

ranwhenparked > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 17:00

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Well, more proof that dogs are amazing, if that was needed. But, I would figure this applies only to highly specialized dogs who have been extensively trained in scent detection, and were then retrained for COVID19. We probably wont ever have enough of those to go around for every school, workplace, theater, shopping mall, etc. 

Chan - Mid-engine with cabin fever > WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI 07/28/2020 at 17:00

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If you miss work you’re less likely to get C19

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 17:01

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Until it’s shown that the animals can spread the virus... (Just putting that out there.)

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 07/28/2020 at 17:01

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What testing?

LimitedTimeOnly @ opposite-lock.com > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 17:05

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Could the dogs become vectors for the disease, though?

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > LimitedTimeOnly @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 17:06

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Ah, dammit...

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 07/28/2020 at 17:06

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Sonova...

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > ranwhenparked 07/28/2020 at 17:07

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Takes 2-3 months to train a detection dog.

The bottleneck is probably the number of trainers.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Tekamul 07/28/2020 at 17:07

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You come in here with your facts...

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > MonkeePuzzle 07/28/2020 at 17:08

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Ha!

ranwhenparked > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 17:10

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And that not all dogs are suited for the job, there's always a few that don't pass the program.

Dr_Watson > My bird IS the word 07/28/2020 at 17:16

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It’s a trade off. We have much better eyes. Visual acuity w orks out better for a tool using species.

jeepoftheseus > ranwhenparked 07/28/2020 at 17:39

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I met a fella once that had a flunkie lab. It was trained to sniff out firearms and whatnot but was deemed “too friendly”. He said that it always gave its signal when people were close enough that were concealed carrying. He said once he had someone petting his dog and talking to him about it and the dog gave its signal. Threw the guy off real bad when he asked him what caliber he was carrying. Pretty fun party trick!

Snuze: Needs another Swede > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 17:45

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Do you know how many belly rubs it would take to get this pupper  to smell my breath every morning? It takes 5 minutes just to wake him up to go out for walks!

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Snuze: Needs another Swede 07/28/2020 at 17:47

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Good boy.

RazoE > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/28/2020 at 18:38

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No bueno

https://dph.georgia.gov/press-releases/2020-07-01/dog-georgia-tests-positive-virus-causes-covid-19

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html

Apparently tigers can get it, but that was probably from that b*tch Carole Baskin. 

ranwhenparked > jeepoftheseus 07/28/2020 at 18:44

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A labrador deemed “too friendly”? I don’t believe it, next you’re going to tell me some lie about him begging for excessive amounts of treats.

Tripper > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 09/23/2020 at 10:29

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Our mastiff often wakes me up with a creepily gentle kiss so she’d be a shoe in for this. I’m always like, “Ahh, oh it’s you ya big snuggler”

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Tripper 09/23/2020 at 10:45

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Haha - soo many woobers.

WasGTIthenGTOthenNOVAnowbacktoGTI > MonkeePuzzle 09/23/2020 at 11:13

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New level of “what’s in your mouth?”

Chariotoflove > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 09/23/2020 at 11:26

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Now I want to look into what the volatile chemicals are that are released upon infection. I teach some classes on basic respiratory function in the Spring, and that would be an interesting tidbit to know.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Chariotoflove 09/23/2020 at 11:50

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Fascinating stuff.

ttyymmnn > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 09/23/2020 at 12:25

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The airport operator continues by saying that the dogs are also able to identify the virus from a much smaller sample than PCR tests . “ The difference is massive, as a dog only needs 10-100 molecules to identify the virus, whereas test equipment requires 18,000,000.”

https://simpleflying.com/helsinki-covid-19-dogs/

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > LimitedTimeOnly @ opposite-lock.com 09/23/2020 at 13:04

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and loose their sense of smell

Shamoononon drives like a farmer > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 09/23/2020 at 13:32

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That would be great, somebody else can smell my breath for once.  

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Shamoononon drives like a farmer 09/23/2020 at 14:56

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Ha!

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > ttyymmnn 09/23/2020 at 14:56

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So cool! 

ttyymmnn > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 09/23/2020 at 15:01

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It really is pretty astonishing.