Kinsa's smart thermometers can help predict COVID hotspots

Kinsa CEO Inder Singh joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the accuracy behind Kinsa’s smart thermometers and break down how tracing fevers can help predict the spread of COVID.

Video Transcript

- Well, smart thermometers that act as real time indicators on where exactly the coronavirus infections are surging, although when we're talking about where things stand today, we're looking at pretty much every state across the country. Kinsa, of course, at the center of all of that. They have distributed more than 2 million smart thermometers so far. We've got the CEO of Kinsa, Inder Singh, joining us today.

And Inder, it's good to talk to you. It's been interesting to see the growth of your company throughout this pandemic. You know, early on, when there was such limited testing, your smart thermometer was sort of the tool that a lot of people looked to, to at least determine where the temperatures were rising on this pandemic. As you look at your data right now, where do things stand? And what are some regions that you think are particularly troubling?

INDER SINGH: Yeah, so what we launched recently is a risk score so that you can see the area risk, the risk in your local area, for contracting illness. And we break that down into things like flu, as well as COVID. And what we're doing is we're collecting data from the 2 million thermometers that are out there in households across the country that provides us with insight on where illness is starting and spreading, and the transmission rates-- how fast it's spreading. And we map all that at healthweather.us. We wanted to launch this in time for the holidays, so that you could see if you happen to be traveling, the risk in your area and the risk in any areas in which you're in which you're traveling.

Today, what we're seeing is that at the 10 highest risk counties are largely in the middle part of the country. El Paso counties in both Texas and Colorado. Texas actually has a number of other high risk counties. Denver, Milwaukee, parts of Michigan. These are all high risk areas, primarily because case counts are high and they continue to rise.

The lowest risk counties are relatively speaking, in the Bay Area and New York. They're still pretty high risk. There's a moderate level of risk there, because case counts are increasing. And they're certainly not as high as in other parts of the country, but they're still pretty high. So yeah, please go and check out healthweather.us if you want to get your area risk score.

- On that front, too, I wonder how much of it has been know the struggles in trying to identify the areas of high risk before they actually become high risk. I know there was a lot of excitement around the product you're talking about here, just because it was kind of, I guess, coming before test became positive, and you can get a little sense of people who had symptoms. But now as we learn more about asymptomatic spread and the idea of people spreading this before those symptoms start to showing, I mean, how much more needs to be done there to kind of identify problem areas before they show up on a symptomatic level?

INDER SINGH: You know, there's a lot of parts in the country where case levels are already very high, and we need to take action. We need to stay at home. We need to mask. The CDC has provided an advisory not to travel for Thanksgiving. That's advisable. But it's still really important to understand where transmission is occurring so that you can figure out where you need to target your resources.

One of the benefits of our network is we get to see symptomatic spread. We get to see transmission before the health care system goes, right? By the time someone enters the health care system, it's already too late. There's been spread of illness. And that flame has turned into an inferno of an epidemic.

So with a product like ours, where we're able to consistently communicate with people from within hours of symptom onset, and see how fast it's spreading in the household, we operate in about 5% of schools across the country-- we can see how fast it's spreading in the schools-- and we can look at it on age by age breakdown-- that's really valuable to understand what's going to happen to different populations, to different parts of the country a few weeks out. And I think that's still really important to today's context. It's still really important to understand where do we need to target our resources.

As the vaccine comes out, it's going to be really important, right? We're going to have to say we need to put the vaccine in this location versus that location. And there's going to be all sorts of frameworks around it, but we really want to attack those places where you're seeing surges and where you're seeing transmission so you can get ahead of the outbreak as opposed to behind it, which is unfortunately where we are with health care data, with case data. It's just too late. By the time you see those case surges, it's already spread.

- Inder, I know you have a number of partnerships of schools across the country, as well. There's been a lot of concern here in New York about the mayor's decision to close the schools at a time when bars and restaurants are still open. What have you learned from the data you've collected in these schools that you've partnered with in terms of the rate of infections, how safe it is? And can a smart thermometer really be enough of a tool to safely reopen schools?

INDER SINGH: I can't imagine how hard it is for a school leader to make decisions today around when to close, when to open, when to implement aggressive social distancing. We know it's hard to keep kids separated and educate them at the same time. So what we do is we provide this network of smart thermometers and a real time interface at the school so you can see on a grade by grade level and at the school-wide level how many people are ill. What's the percentage of the households associated with a school-- with a grade or with the school-- that are ill, and where the trends are.

So you finally have some real time data to base your decisions on, right? It's great that cities and states are providing guidance and guidelines to school leaders, but they still feel pressure, because an outbreak doesn't start everywhere in a county at the same time. It starts in clusters. And you can see if there's a rising level of illness in first grade or at the school, to start taking those actions.

So we see that school program is incredibly valuable in containing illness and curbing transmission and breaking the chain of infection for the broader community, right? Because this is the one location where our families interact a lot-- is your children interact a lot at those-- at the school. So there's a lot of debate. Sorry.

INDER SINGH: No, I was going to say, I mean, we know how parents have really been struggling on so many different levels, because what's been playing out in schools. And this idea of schools being closed for at least several more weeks certainly likely to weigh on parents. Inder Singh, CEO of Kinsa. Thanks so much for joining us today.

INDER SINGH: Thank you.