Amazon's Alexa can help with preliminary coronavirus diagnosis: Here's how
In a bid to allay all your concerns regarding the novel coronavirus disease, Amazon has built a new triage tool in Alexa. The feature allows the smart assistant to conduct a preliminary screening for the disease and give appropriate suggestions if you come out as a high-risk patient. Here's all you need to know about it.
Alexa would throw questions for COVID-19 diagnosis
If you think you have COVID-19, just ask Alexa to assess your risk level for the disease or say something like "Alexa, what do I do if I think I have coronavirus/COVID-19". Then, the assistant will throw a series of questions to assess your condition and determine whether you are suffering from the disease or not.
Questions on travel history, symptoms et al
While screening, Alexa will ask about your current symptoms to match with those of COVID-19 as well as factors responsible for COVID-19 transmission, including past travel history or close contact with someone confirmed to have the disease. On the basis of the responses, it will suggest your risk level of contracting the disease, just like how Siri and Alphabet's Verily have been doing.
Then, it will offer CDC's guidance depending on your case
After the screening, depending on your risk-level, Alexa will offer guidance, as suggested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If you are healthy, it will suggest staying indoors as much as possible while in other cases it will suggest to contact health authorities or 911 for critical cases. However, in either case, it won't inform about the nearest testing center.
Capabilities not available for India right now
The ability to get yourself screened while interacting with a smart speaker is really handy but only users in US and Japan (with guidance from the Japanese Ministry of Health) can use the function right now. If you are in India though, Alexa can sing a song for 20 seconds to help you pass time during your hand-wash session.
Alternatively, Alexa can answer other questions on coronavirus
You can also ask tens of thousands of questions related to COVID-19, including things like how the disease spreads, its symptoms, ways of prevention and latest information from official government and news sources globally.
