Dogs sniffing Corona

[dturm]

I had read a story a month or so ago about attempting to train dogs to scent discriminate corona. If it works out, this would be a huge step in testing masses of people quickly and relatively cheaply.

Dogs are amazing!!!

CBS story

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

BCSnob wrote:
My guess is the dogs are detecting the presence of proteins produced by the body during inflammation in the response to an upper respiratory virus (any respiratory virus). What I’d like to know is at what point after infection the dogs can detect the infection; if before the onset of symptoms then dogs will be more effective and efficient than temperature checks.

Being able to sniff out infection in those who are asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic, would truly be a game-changer. For those people, a thermometer is just a waste of batteries.... and I thought I read/heard that one study showed that 48% of transmitted infections came from those folks.

[BCSnob]

My guess is the dogs are detecting the presence of proteins produced by the body during inflammation in the response to an upper respiratory virus (any respiratory virus). What I’d like to know is at what point after infection the dogs can detect the infection; if before the onset of symptoms then dogs will be more effective and efficient than temperature checks.

[Toolguy5]

dturm wrote:
Dan, your governor has actually done as good a job as possible in this situation. He acted early and has been measured in response considering health measures as well as economic issues. He has worked with our governor and those of MI, WI, IL and KY and together up to this point I guess we're as good as possible with some businesses able to operate. We're also under a mask mandate, pretty simple thing to do to try to help out.

Yes the mask is a simple thing to do.
Only if everyone would wear one.
We have been wearing mask even when they said not to.
To us it just made common sense that if your nose and mouth were covered the less chance you had of breathing in contaminates.

[dturm]

Dan, your governor has actually done as good a job as possible in this situation. He acted early and has been measured in response considering health measures as well as economic issues. He has worked with our governor and those of MI, WI, IL and KY and together up to this point I guess we're as good as possible with some businesses able to operate. We're also under a mask mandate, pretty simple thing to do to try to help out.

[Toolguy5]

That would be great to have dogs trained.

This virus sure is not going away anytime soon.

Ohio is now a mandatory mask. If we visit any southern states need to self quarantine when return for 14 days.

[naturist]

rexlion wrote:
It's all right to have dogs that sniff Corona, but don't let them drink it... 😉

Just kidding.

Hey, that's the problem. They start off sniffing it, next thing you know they're snorting it, and it's a very short slippery slope through drinking it to guzzling it like there's no tomorrow. And then there isn't!

[rexlion]

It's all right to have dogs that sniff Corona, but don't let them drink it... 😉

Just kidding.

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

This is amazing!! Think of the time/money that would be saved if the medical folks only had to test probable positives?

[dturm]

All the dogs I've read about have been in households where covid positive people were. I suspect what they are smelling is not the virus, but biochemical changes within the infected person. One study I heard about was smelling sweat.

The dogs that did have covid found in their nasal or throat either did not show disease or very mild symptoms. This disease does not appear to be a serious threat to dogs.

Infecting the dog would be something to consider, but if a dog could process 500 people an hour and work a few hours a day, it would really speed testing and results. I suspect if a dog "hit" on a person, the person would then get a test.

[1492]

Would it be counter productive if the dogs get Corona virus from people who carry the virus? There have been some articles claiming dogs contracted Covid-19 from their owners? If accurate, you possibly could lose a number of these trained dogs in the line of duty?

Though, according to CDC, no conclusive data showing pets transmitting Covid-19 to people?

[gbopp]

I've read about dogs with the ability to sniff out cancer.
A coronavirus sniffer would be fantastic, especially for schools.

But, would someone whine that it's a HIPAA privacy violation if a dog goes down a line of students?