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'Very promising method': Finland deploys coronavirus-sniffing dogs at main airport

JacksinPA

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HELSINKI — Finland has deployed coronavirus-sniffing dogs at the Nordic country’s main international airport in a four-month trial of an alternative testing method that could become a cost-friendly and quick way to identify infected travelers.

Four dogs of different breeds trained by Finland’s Smell Detection Association started working Wednesday at the Helsinki Airport as part of the government-financed trial.

“It’s a very promising method. Dogs are very good at sniffing,” said Anna Hielm-Bjorkman, a University of Helsinki professor of equine and small animal medicine.

“If it works, it will be a good (coronavirus) screening method at any other places,” she said, listing hospitals, ports, elderly people’s homes, sports venues and cultural events among the possible locations where trained dogs could put their snouts to work.
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The virus disrupts enough chemical systems in the body that tell-tale odors are generated that dogs can be trained to detect.
 
Is there anyway humans can be trained to do this?
 
Is there anyway humans can be trained to do this?
Some people, like professional perfumers, might have this ability. But the sense of smell in dogs is much more powerful than in humans.
 

HELSINKI — Finland has deployed coronavirus-sniffing dogs at the Nordic country’s main international airport in a four-month trial of an alternative testing method that could become a cost-friendly and quick way to identify infected travelers.

Four dogs of different breeds trained by Finland’s Smell Detection Association started working Wednesday at the Helsinki Airport as part of the government-financed trial.

“It’s a very promising method. Dogs are very good at sniffing,” said Anna Hielm-Bjorkman, a University of Helsinki professor of equine and small animal medicine.

“If it works, it will be a good (coronavirus) screening method at any other places,” she said, listing hospitals, ports, elderly people’s homes, sports venues and cultural events among the possible locations where trained dogs could put their snouts to work.
================================================
The virus disrupts enough chemical systems in the body that tell-tale odors are generated that dogs can be trained to detect.

Very promising find if so. This would mean that externally-detectable chemicals can be emitted by COVID-19 carriers.
 
Very promising find if so. This would mean that externally-detectable chemicals can be emitted by COVID-19 carriers.
Yes. Many diseases cause the body to emit different chemicals that dogs can detect selectively.
 
Is there anyway humans can be trained to do this?

Olympic sniffers

Dogs' sense of smell overpowers our own by orders of magnitude—it's 10,000 to 100,000 times as acute, scientists say. "Let's suppose they're just 10,000 times better," says James Walker, former director of the Sensory Research Institute at Florida State University, who, with several colleagues, came up with that jaw-dropping estimate during a rigorously designed, oft-cited study. "If you make the analogy to vision, what you and I can see at a third of a mile, a dog could see more than 3,000 miles away and still see as well." Put another way, dogs can detect some odors in parts per trillion. What does that mean in terms we might understand? Well, in her book Inside of a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz, a dog-cognition researcher at Barnard College, writes that while we might notice if our coffee has had a teaspoon of sugar added to it, a dog could detect a teaspoon of sugar in a million gallons of water, or two Olympic-sized pools worth. Another dog scientist likened their ability to catching a whiff of one rotten apple in two million barrels.




Guess. . .
 
Very promising find if so. This would mean that externally-detectable chemicals can be emitted by COVID-19 carriers.
Well Dogs are known to be able to smell out cancer in people so maybe this is possible and I for one hope it works
It would be nice to just be able to have a dog walk through a crowd and detect a person that has it
Now if it does work I hope people will heed the warning and stay away from other people and get to a Doctor
Have a nice day
 
Well Dogs are known to be able to smell out cancer in people so maybe this is possible and I for one hope it works
It would be nice to just be able to have a dog walk through a crowd and detect a person that has it
Now if it does work I hope people will heed the warning and stay away from other people and get to a Doctor
Have a nice day

As long as this doesn't degrade into a situation where drug-sniffing dogs' false positives are reinforced through affection.
 

HELSINKI — Finland has deployed coronavirus-sniffing dogs at the Nordic country’s main international airport in a four-month trial of an alternative testing method that could become a cost-friendly and quick way to identify infected travelers.

Four dogs of different breeds trained by Finland’s Smell Detection Association started working Wednesday at the Helsinki Airport as part of the government-financed trial.

“It’s a very promising method. Dogs are very good at sniffing,” said Anna Hielm-Bjorkman, a University of Helsinki professor of equine and small animal medicine.

“If it works, it will be a good (coronavirus) screening method at any other places,” she said, listing hospitals, ports, elderly people’s homes, sports venues and cultural events among the possible locations where trained dogs could put their snouts to work.
================================================
The virus disrupts enough chemical systems in the body that tell-tale odors are generated that dogs can be trained to detect.

Brainwashed commies, welcome in communist prison
 
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