The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched an online self-checker for the novel coronavirus in the form of a bot named Clara.
Why it matters: Clara can act as a triage for health care providers, who are under increasing strain from a surge in COVID-19 cases. There are more than 35,000 cases in the U.S. — the third-highest in the world after China and Italy as of early Monday, according to Johns Hopkins data.
- Per Microsoft, which is behind the Healthcare Bot service: "[T]he need to screen patients with any number of cold or flu-like symptoms — to determine who has high enough risk factors to need access to limited medical resources and which people may more safely care for themselves at home — is a bottleneck that threatens to overwhelm health systems coping with the crisis."
Of note: The online self-checker is designed to help people make "decisions about seeking appropriate medical care" and is not to be used as a "diagnosis or treatment of disease or other conditions, including COVID-19," the CDC states on its website.
How it works: The bot asks users a series of questions, ranging from whether that person has possible symptoms or pre-existing medical conditions to whether they may have encountered someone diagnosed with the virus.
- Based on their answers, Clara then recommends to users the appropriate next steps, from urgent directions like "go to the Emergency Department" to "call your provider if you get worse."
