CDC and Microsoft create a chatbot to help test themselves on COVID-19

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with Microsoft, has developed a chatbot that can preliminarily identify the symptoms of the COVID-19 virus. The Clara chat bot was developed based on Microsoft's Healthcare Bot, writes "Voice of America".

Photo: Shutterstock

It asks the user a series of questions that are based on CDC Information on Coronavirus Symptoms. Let us remind you that these are fever, dry cough and breathing problems. After analyzing the received data, the bot can offer the user: self-isolate, consult with a specialist, or visit an emergency room. Additionally, the chatbot provides additional information and contacts for local health departments.

According to Microsoft, the use of artificial intelligence will help reduce the burden on doctors, nurses and the administration of hospitals, which will allow them to focus on more complex cases. After all, the bot can quickly sort among patients those who have high risk factors and require emergency medical care, and those who can stay at home. This will help prevent overloading the overall health system.

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At the same time, the developers pay attention to the fact that the bot only informs about the potential threat and provides contacts of local health departments where to go. However, he does not provide the address of the COVID-19 testing centers and makes no diagnoses.

Microsoft also said that since the launch, the chatbot has received up to 1 million requests per day from people who are worried about the presence of coronavirus symptoms. Developers expect that the number of requests will only grow.

Photo: screenshot www.cdc.gov

This is not the only Microsoft project aimed at helping in the fight against coronavirus. Previously, the company launched a resource based on Bing, which collects information on the spread of the virus (number of sick, dead, recovered) around the world. In addition, the company works with Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter and YouTube to combat the spread of fake news and misinformation on these platforms.

Other companies and universities use artificial intelligence to fight against coronavirus. For example, the Harvard University Global Health Institute has developed an interactive map that calculates hospital loads in all US states depending on various scenarios. The developers hope that this will help the authorities to see the gaps in the system and respond to them in a timely manner.

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Artificial intelligence is also used to diagnose COVID-19 from lung images. In China, in the midst of an epidemic, a number of companies specializing in artificial intelligence have taught their programs to recognize CT images of the lungs. At first they worked as a “second pair of eyes,” but since the end of February, artificial intelligence has learned to recognize COVID-19 in the lungs in seconds. After that, these programs began to be actively used in hospitals.

A similar system is used by Israeli doctors. Local startup RADLogics has developed an artificial intelligence based diagnostic system. In addition to quick diagnosis and high accuracy of the result, the system can also track how the disease proceeds.

You can test using the chat bot. on the CDC page.

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