The Covid Symptoms Hidden in Our Voices

help today. A surprisingly weak January employment report helped make the case for substantial aid, and the Senate took action to smooth the legislative path for his proposal. Private sector payrolls barely grew in January, while the restaurant and lodging sector log almost six hundred thousand in job losses over the past two months. That's according to the monthly jobs report from the Labor Department out today. While the jobless rate dipped to six point three percent, that was partly

because some Americans gave up looking for work. The United Kingdom said it plans to offer everyone over the age of fifty a first dose of coronavirus vaccine by May. It's the first time that Boris Johnson's government has set a target for the next stage of its vaccination program. The plan was included in an announcement that also said local and mayoral elections will go ahead on May six,

after they were delayed by a year due to the pandemic. Finally, a study has found a surprisingly strong indicator of whether someone infected with COVID nineteen has a higher risk of severe disease and death. That indicator is whether they've had pneumonia in the past. According to researchers at Harvard University, a prior episode of pneumonia was the second greatest overall risk factor for death from COVID nineteen. The study showed.

The researchers pointed out that by itself, a single pneumonia case probably doesn't put someone at high risk. It's more likely to be an indicator of underlying chronic disease that's gone undiagnosed. And now for today's main story. When we're coming down with a cold, or are feeling a bit stressed, or perhaps even exhibiting the first symptoms of COVID nineteen, minute changes to our voice are often one of the

first indicators that something is wrong. These vocal bio markers are often beyond what a human can detect, But what if an app on your phone could. Health reporter Michelle fack Cortez recently spoke to David Luke, CEO of sound Health, which is released an app that uses a person's voice to detect early symptoms of respiratory illnesses, including COVID nineteen. I asked Michelle what vocal bio markers can tell us.

You recently had a chance to speak with the CEO of sound Health, which is released an app called sold one. I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about this app and how it relates to COVID nineteen. This app is looking for vocal bio markers indications that you might be actively infected with coronavirus and that the illness could be having an impact on your voice. It

is something that is relatively easy to use. It's something that's being adopted by companies and schools and other outlets as a way to get an early heads up on potential risk. David Leeu is the CEO of sound Health, and he laid out how it works for us. Song One is a app based product that can be downloaded from any smartphone with that that app, you're able to record six seconds of voice and we can give you then a reading on your risk for having symptoms of

respiratory disease like COVID nineteen. In terms of how this app can actually detect whether or not you have COVID nineteen or another respiratory illness, I mean, how exactly is

it doing that through your voice? Your voice is an integral part of you, and you know from your own personal experience listening to your loved ones and people that you know well, sometimes you can tell if somebody is not feeling great, if there might be something going on with them in terms of illness or perhaps anxiety or stress. We're talking about things like the patterns in the rhythms, the will intonation, any kind of variation in that process

is what they're looking for. And as you do it over and over again, the app can get better at knowing your own individual patterns comparing that to yourself and to other people. David laid out for us the way that it works. Bio Markers are any any information that is given off by the body. Could be your come

from blood, could be come from saliva, your your heart rate. Um. These are signals that are coming from your body that can be measured right and can be recorded, and so vocal bio markers are field that has really begun to grow and explode in the last five years, I would say, so it's fairly new when used in the health context. Our company son has has already launched vocal bio markers for detection of mental health conditions such as depression and

now respiratory illness. There are other companies in the space stead of also UH used vocal bio markers for other health conditions. So what is the science or you know, the research that underpins this app How have they constructed away that something on your phone can detect symptoms of an illness or even COVID nineteen. There has been some research done on this in order to determine how effective

the approaches. But of course it's important to realize this isn't something that's approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and you're ensurre isn't going to pay for it, but it is an early indicator of potential danger. You can think of it kind of like a thermometer or your mom putting her hand on your forehead to see if there's something going on with a layer of science and technology on top of that. Really drilling down into the details.

You need to have a lot of experience and a lot of data to have been and to have studied this data. Voice data that is health condition labeled, meaning we have now over a million voice samples that we have collected and studied must have confirmed labels stating that this person had the disease or the the health condition, and so they've been diagnosed with that condition, and then

we study their voice from there. We also study people's voices who are completely healthy and we compare those those voices. When you have that larger volume of data, you're then able to look at different groups of people men, women, uh, You're able to look at different ages of people, different devices. So many things come into consideration when you're analyzing voice.

When we're looking at different health conditions, then we can zero in, for example, in respiratory disease or even depression, we can zero in on the vocal features that are most sensitive to change when somebody displays a symptom of that disease. And again we are not diagnosing for disease. We are comply monitoring and detecting the change in your voice. Vocal features that are not able to be picked up by the human ear, such as prosody, such as tonality,

even breaks and speech um. There are so many of these vocal features that we do examine and put into our machine learning models that help us then predict based upon the data, who might have who has a higher probability of having these symptoms of disease versus people who are completely fine. Just to be clear, this is something that can only pick up symptoms when you're already manifesting

symptoms of COVID nineteen or another respiratory illness. This isn't something that could pick up whether or not you have COVID nineteen if you happen to be asymptomatic. It's not a diagnostic. It doesn't tell you that you are definitively infected with coronavirus. But it is another layer, another indicator that could help well determine if they are at risk.

The company is not claiming that it is something that should be used in order to determine who is safe for high risk situations in terms of you know, visiting friends and family, are going to a nursing home, flying, that sort of a thing. But it is another piece of the puzzle. You know, we've been focusing on COVID nineteen, but what else can these types of apps like so

on one detect using these vocal bio markers. Previous research has looked at vocal bio markers for indications of other potential health conditions, most specifically mental health issues like anxiety and depression. Those are areas where we do get a lot of change that happens, that comes through your voice. Sometimes looking intently at that particular piece can give you in it into how you're feeling and where your health is going. I'm wondering about some of the potential risks

or problems. I mean, being able to speak into your phone and it tell you whether or not you have symptoms of either COVID nineteen or just a respiratory illness could be very useful, but what are the risks, say I'm thinking of um in terms of either patient privacy or just misdiagnosis. Privacy and misdiagnosis are actually critical issues, especially in this period of time that we're in right now.

Everyone is talking about privacy across every platform as we're all interacting with each other online, but there are absolutely issues about where this information is going, especially because in many cases it's employers or other organizations that are gathering this information. There is room for things to go sideways. Now, Michelle, you've actually have the opportunity to try out sound one for yourself. Walk us through what the process is of

of using the app. So I downloaded the app this morning, and I used a key that the company gave me full disclosure, and I answered a couple of questions including my email address, my gender, my birthdate, and now I'm ready to give it a shot. All right, walk us through, you know, submitting a vocal sample. Here we go. So I'm looking at a screen. It says sound one tap here to get started inside concentric white circles. It's loading. You have a questionnaire and a voice activity to complete.

My voice does feel a little scratchy today, so we'll see how that goes. I definitely feel healthy, though, and I have been pretty much in my basement for the last month, so I don't think I'm high risk. Here in this activity, I want you to take a breath and hold the vowel sound ah like in the word father. Please hold that sound for six seconds or until you run out of breath, let's begin. Uh wof, I got

it done. That's a little bit harder than I thought. Okay, my health score, I'm a low risk, I'm a fifty means that today's score is in your normal range. And now I'm getting my screening results. Sounds like you're feeling okay. Watch for COVID nineteen symptoms and call your medical provider if any symptoms develop. Follow your local and state public

health guidelines to keep yourself and others safe. So it occurs to me, Laura, that part of the benefit of a screening like this is that you just literally have somebody every day walking through the process of thinking about how they're feeling. Do I feel hot? Did I sleep poorly? Am I losing my sense of taste or smell? Those are things we should all be asking ourselves, but I

don't know that we do it intentionally every day. So if you do have an app that's walking you through this, that could be a big part of the benefit right there, regardless of what you learn from your vocal bio markers. That was Michelle fa Cortez and that's it for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one twenty bureaus around the world. Visit bloomberg dot com, slash Coronavirus, and if you like the show, please leave us a

review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by tophor Forheas, Magnus Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Michelle fay Cortez. Original music by Leo Sidran. Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesco Leady. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening well.