According to a company that produces thermometers that connect to the internet, thus permitting the company to track fevers across America, the social distancing measures that many areas in the United States have implemented are successfully working to reduce the number of coronavirus transmissions.
Kinsa Health, which, according to The New York Times, has routinely been two to three weeks ahead of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in predicting flu data since 2018, when it distributed over 500,000 thermometers, created a map of fever levels nationwide on March 22 and saw by the next day that social distancing measures were working.
The Times reported in 2018, “Kinsa’s smartphone app uses a bubble game to entice children to take their temperatures. If fever is detected, it asks parents about other symptoms and then offers basic medical advice or urges the user to see a doctor.”
Kinsa now has over one million thermometers in circulation; the Times reported that since COVID-19 hit the U.S, the company has obtained as many as 162,000 daily temperature readings. The Times noted, “To identify clusters of coronavirus infections, Kinsa recently adapted its software to detect spikes of ‘atypical fever’ that do not correlate with historical flu patterns and are likely attributable to the coronavirus. As of noon Wednesday, the company’s live map showed fevers holding steady or dropping almost universally across the country, with two prominent exceptions.”
The first exception turned out to be a sizable part of New Mexico, where stay-at-home measures had just been ordered by the governor, and adjacent counties in Southern Colorado. The other was an area roughly 100-150 miles from New Orleans, where Mardi Gras celebrations were held.
By Friday morning, every county in the U.S. showed a drop in fevers, especially in the West. The map showed that by Monday, over three-quarters of the country was dropping in the number of fevers. The Times wrote, “A separate display of the collective national fever trend, which had spiked upward to a peak on March 17, had fallen so far that it was actually below the band showing historical flu fever trends — which meant that the lockdown has cut not only Covid-19 transmission but flu transmission, too.”
In Manhattan, the number of fevers dropped after March 16, when day schools were closed. By March 23, new fevers had dropped below March 1 levels. The Times added, “Last Friday, New York State’s own data showed the same trend that Kinsa’s fever readings had spotted five days earlier.”
Nita Nehru, a company spokeswoman, pointed out that the downward trend in fevers may not be reflected in fewer cases or hospitalizations because people with fevers don’t always go to the hospital. Additionally, states are performing more tests.
Dr. William Schaffner, a preventive medicine expert at Vanderbilt University, told the Times, “I’m very impressed by this. It looks like a way to prove that social distancing works.” He noted that graphs supplied by Kinsa indicated that orders to limit public gatherings from public officials had less effect than closing restaurants and bars and people staying home, adding, “It does show that it takes the most restrictive measures to make a real difference.”