Ask HN: Detect Coronavirus Fever via Webcam?
Here's the idea:
1. Heart rate can be estimated via (webcam) video of someone’s face with high accuracy (even with poor video quality).[1],[2]
2. This heart rate can then be used to estimate core temperature with high accuracy.[3],[4]
3. Fever (body temperature ≥38°C) [5] is the most typical symptom of C19 - in 88% of confirmed cases.[6] (Though some C19 transmission might be asymptomatic[7] and presymptomatic.[8],[9])
4. Can we start an open-source project to create a digital fever thermometer? This could be used as a smartphone app or on the web (ala donottouchyourface.com). A webcam could continuously monitor people’s temperature and alert them to it if they have a fever.
‘Thermometer Guns’ have drawbacks: they’re more expensive, you need to get close to someone’s head to take temperature, they are not very accurate, they don’t provide continuous measurement- yet it is still used for coronavirus containment.[10]
I feel if this would work, it might be a very cost-effective intervention to diagnose coronavirus.
[1] "Detecting Pulse from Head Motions in Video - People.csail.mit ...." http://people.csail.mit.edu/balakg/pulsefromheadmotion.html
[2] "Heart rate estimation using facial video: A review " https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1746809417301362
[3] "Estimating Resting Core Temperature Using Heart Rate" https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/jmpb/1/2/article-p79.xml
[4] "Real-time core body temperature estimation from heart ... - NCBI." 13 May. 2015, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25967760
[5] "Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of ... - NEJM." https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001316
All other citations here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D4nhDux-ncnsZjXJrmXkZiK7LJjH_tyxWkVJR3fOOJ0/edit?usp=sharing