British Police Dogs Trained to Detect COVID-19 from Socks

British scientists said on Monday that police dogs trained using socks worn by COVID-19 patients may soon be used in airports or crowded places to identify COVID-19 cases by detecting the "smell of coronavirus." The scientists explained that the trained dogs can screen several hundred people within half an hour with an accuracy rate of 94.3 percent. The study, which is still in its early stages, involved nearly 3,500 unwashed socks and shirts worn by former COVID-19 patients. Researchers noted that the dogs were able to detect cases without symptoms or with mild symptoms, as well as infections from the variant of the coronavirus that emerged in the UK late last year. Steve Lindsay, a professor in the Department of Biosciences at Durham University who participated in the study, stated, "Dogs could be a great way to quickly screen a large number of people and prevent COVID from entering the UK again." James Logan, an infectious disease specialist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who led the research team, mentioned that the main advantage of police dogs over other screening methods is their "incredible speed and high accuracy with large groups of people." This British study comes alongside other experimental projects taking place in Finland, Germany, Chile, and elsewhere, using police dogs to detect COVID-19 in airports.