ArticlePLOS digital health2022
Deploying wearable sensors for pandemic mitigation: A counterfactual modelling study of Canada's second COVID-19 wave.
Article in PLOS digital health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of Digital Contact Tracing and Other Nonpharmaceutical Interventions on Pandemic Control: Microlevel, Behavior-Driven Agent-Based Model Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Bio-Inspired Swarm Navigation on Resource-Constrained Robots for GPS-Denied Environments.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Next-Gen Healthcare Devices: Evolution of MEMS and BioMEMS in the Era of the Internet of Bodies for Personalized Medicine.Micromachines · 2025Review
- Terminating pandemics with smartwatches.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Wearable sensors can continuously and passively detect potential respiratory infections before or absent symptoms. However, the population-level impact of deploying these devices during pandemics is unclear. We built a compartmental model of Canada's second COVID-19 wave and simulated wearable sensor deployment scenarios, systematically varying detection algorithm accuracy, uptake, and adherence. With current detection algorithms and 4% uptake, we observed a 16% reduction in the second wave burden of infection; however, 22% of this reduction was attributed to incorrectly quarantining uninfected device users. Improving detection specificity and offering confirmatory rapid tests each minimized unnecessary quarantines and lab-based tests. With a sufficiently low false positive rate, increasing uptake and adherence became effective strategies for scaling averted infections. We concluded that wearable sensors capable of detecting presymptomatic or asymptomatic infections have potential to help reduce the burden of infection during a pandemic; in the case of COVID-19, technology improvements or supporting measures are required to keep social and resource costs sustainable.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.