We’re almost two years into the era of Covid-19, and scientists and doctors are continuing to find new ways to try to fugue out ways to get us out of this mess, or at least make daily life more tolerable and productive.
In the UK, schools, hospitals and businesses are considering using Covid sniffer dogs to detect the virus. Yes, a public study by an academic consortium in the UK showed that dogs have a much better ability to pick up the presence of Covid in humans than results that come from lateral flow tests.
In fact, the study has shown that dogs are so good at it, their level of accuracy is about the same as PCR tests considered to be “gold standard.”
They are looking into using specially trained canines to detect Covid at the entrances to schools, hospitals, pubs, and nightclubs. Even at airports.
Other countries are looking into the possibility of using dogs too. An airport in Finland ran a test program. In Dubai, 38 sniffer dogs were trained to detect covid, according to a story in Reuters.
The study’s conductors say that different cancers and diseases have unique “odor signatures,” and they can be detected by some breeds of dogs, specifically cocker spaniels and Labradors.
One of the best things about having dogs test for Covid is how quickly it can happen. It takes these specially trained dogs just 0.5 seconds to sniff and determine if someone is positive.
In one of the studies, six dogs sniffed over 3,500 odor samples and had an accuracy rate between 82 and 94 percent.
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