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Signs of Covid-19 may be hidden in speech signals
Studying voice recordings of infected but asymptomatic people reveals potential indicators of Covid-19.
15 July, 2020
Ezra Acayan/Getty Images
It's often easy to tell when colleagues are struggling with a cold — they sound sick.
<p> Maybe their voices are lower or have a nasally tone. Infections change the quality of our voices in various ways. But MIT Lincoln Laboratory researchers are detecting these changes in Covid-19 patients even when these changes are too subtle for people to hear or even notice in themselves.</p><p>By processing speech recordings of people infected with Covid-19 but not yet showing symptoms, these researchers found evidence of vocal biomarkers, or measurable indicators, of the disease. These biomarkers stem from disruptions the infection causes in the movement of muscles across the respiratory, laryngeal, and articulatory systems. A technology letter describing this research was recently <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9103574/" target="_blank">published</a> in <em>IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology.</em></p><p>While this research is still in its early stages, the initial findings lay a framework for studying these vocal changes in greater detail. This work may also hold promise for using mobile apps to screen people for the disease, particularly those who are asymptomatic.</p>
<h3>Talking heads</h3><p>"I had this 'aha' moment while I was watching the news," says Thomas Quatieri, a senior staff member in the laboratory's Human Health and Performance Systems Group. Quatieri has been leading the group's research in vocal biomarkers for the past decade; their focus has been on discovering vocal biomarkers of neurological disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's disease. These diseases, and many others, change the brain's ability to turn thoughts into words, and those changes can be detected by processing speech signals.</p><p>He and his team wondered whether vocal biomarkers might also exist for Covid-19. The symptoms led them to think so. When symptoms manifest, a person typically has difficulty breathing. Inflammation in the respiratory system affects the intensity with which air is exhaled when a person talks. This air interacts with hundreds of other potentially inflamed muscles on its journey to speech production. These interactions impact the loudness, pitch, steadiness, and resonance of the voice — measurable qualities that form the basis of their biomarkers.</p><p>While watching the news, Quatieri realized there were speech samples in front of him of people who had tested positive for Covid-19. He and his colleagues combed YouTube for clips of celebrities or TV hosts who had given interviews while they were Covid-19 positive but asymptomatic. They identified five subjects. Then, they downloaded interviews of those people from before they had Covid-19, matching audio conditions as best they could.</p>
<p>They then used algorithms to extract features from the vocal signals in each audio sample. "These vocal features serve as proxies for the underlying movements of the speech production systems," says Tanya Talkar, a PhD candidate in the Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology program at Harvard University.</p><p>The signal's amplitude, or loudness, was extracted as a proxy for movement in the respiratory system. For studying movements in the larynx, they measured pitch and the steadiness of pitch, two indicators of how stable the vocal cords are. As a proxy for articulator movements — like those of the tongue, lips, jaw, and more — they extracted speech formants. Speech formants are frequency measurements that correspond to how the mouth shapes sound waves to create a sequence of phonemes (vowels and consonants) and to contribute to a certain vocal quality (nasally versus warm, for example).</p><p>They hypothesized that Covid-19 inflammation causes muscles across these systems to become overly coupled, resulting in a less complex movement. "Picture these speech subsystems as if they are the wrist and fingers of a skilled pianist; normally, the movements are independent and highly complex," Quatieri says. Now, picture if the wrist and finger movements were to become stuck together, moving as one. This coupling would force the pianist to play a much simpler tune.</p><p>The researchers looked for evidence of coupling in their features, measuring how each feature changed in relation to another in 10 millisecond increments as the subject spoke. These values were then plotted on an eigenspectrum; the shape of this eigenspectrum plot indicates the complexity of the signals. "If the eigenspace of the values forms a sphere, the signals are complex. If there is less complexity, it might look more like a flat oval," Talkar says.</p><p>In the end, they found a decreased complexity of movement in the Covid-19 interviews as compared to the pre-Covid-19 interviews. "The coupling was less prominent between larynx and articulator motion, but we're seeing a reduction in complexity between respiratory and larynx motion," Talkar says.</p>
<h3>Early detections</h3><p>These preliminary results hint that biomarkers derived from vocal system coordination can indicate the presence of Covid-19. However, the researchers note that it's still early to draw conclusions, and more data are needed to validate their findings. They're working now with a publicly released dataset from Carnegie Mellon University that contains audio samples from individuals who have tested positive for Covid-19.</p><p>Beyond collecting more data to fuel this research, the team is looking at using mobile apps to implement it. A partnership is underway with Satra Ghosh at the MIT McGovern Institute for Brain Research to integrate <a href="https://sensein.github.io/covid19/#/" target="_blank">vocal screening for Covid-19</a> into its <a href="https://voicesurvey.mit.edu/mobile-survey" target="_blank">VoiceUp app</a>, which was initially developed to study the link between voice and depression. A follow-on effort could add this vocal screening into the <a href="https://howwefeel.org/" target="_blank">How We Feel app</a>. This app asks users questions about their daily health status and demographics, with the aim to use these data to pinpoint hotspots and predict the percentage of people who have the disease in different regions of the country. Asking users to also submit a daily voice memo to screen for biomarkers of Covid-19 could potentially help scientists catch on to an outbreak.</p><p>"A sensing system integrated into a mobile app could pick up on infections early, before people feel sick or, especially, for these subsets of people who don't ever feel sick or show symptoms," says Jeffrey Palmer, who leads the research group. "This is also something the U.S. Army is interested in as part of a holistic Covid-19 monitoring system." Even after a diagnosis, this sensing ability could help doctors remotely monitor their patients' progress or monitor the effects of a vaccine or drug treatment.</p><p>As the team continues their research, they plan to do more to address potential confounders that could cause inaccuracies in their results, such as different recording environments, the emotional status of the subjects, or other illnesses causing vocal changes. They're also supporting similar research. The <a href="https://covidinnovation.partners.org/" target="_blank">Mass General Brigham Center for COVID Innovation</a> has connected them to international scientists who are following the team's framework to analyze coughs.</p><p>"There are a lot of other interesting areas to look at. Here, we looked at the physiological impacts on the vocal tract. We're also looking to expand our biomarkers to consider neurophysiological impacts linked to Covid-19, like the loss of taste and smell," Quatieri says. "Those symptoms can affect speaking, too."</p><p><span></span>Reprinted with permission of <a href="http://news.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT News</a>. Read the <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2020/signs-covid-19-may-be-hidden-speech-signals-0708" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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How often do vaccine trials hit paydirt?
Vaccines find more success in development than any other kind of drug, but have been relatively neglected in recent decades.
07 July, 2020
Pedro Vilela/Getty Images
Vaccines are more likely to get through clinical trials than any other type of drug — but have been given relatively little pharmaceutical industry support during the last two decades, according to a new study by MIT scholars.
<p>Over a two-decade span from January 2000 to January 2020, private-sector vaccine-development efforts succeeded in bringing a drug to market 39.6 percent of the time, the researchers found. By contrast, programs to develop anti-infective therapeutics — medicines that lessen the severity of illness, including antibiotics — succeeded 16.3 percent of the time.</p><p>"The probability of success for vaccines is reliably higher than for any other drug development area," says MIT economist Andrew Lo, co-author of a new paper detailing the study.</p><p>At a glance, that might seem to augur well for drug-development prospects during the Covid-19 pandemic, since over 100 projects globally are aimed at finding a vaccine for the virus. But scientists may be racing to make up for lost time, in a sense — because as the study also shows, vaccine development for some of the world's most dangerous diseases has lagged in recent decades.</p>
<p>For instance: Out of nearly 10,000 drug-development projects in the study, just a relative handful have addressed the high-profile, highly problematic contagions of the last 20 years.</p><p>"If you look at the most significant diseases outside of Covid-19, like MERS, SARS, Ebola, and Zika, among those diseases, there's been a total of only 45 nonvaccine programs initiated over the last two decades for them," Lo notes. "And there's been only one vaccine approved, for Ebola, in December 2019. That's worrisome, because we know for a fact that these diseases are real threats, and yet there's been relatively little attention paid to them."</p><p>The paper, "Estimating Probabilities of Success of Vaccine and Other Anti-Infective Therapeutic Development Programs," was released on May 18 as part of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper series and has been accepted for publication in the <em>Harvard Data Science Review</em>. The authors are Lo, who is the Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor in the MIT Sloan School of Management and director of MIT's Laboratory of Financial Engineering; Kien Wei Siah, a PhD candidate in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; and Chi Heem Wong, a PhD candidate in the Computer Science and Artifical Intelligence Laboratory and the Laboratory for Financial Engineering.</p>
<h3>Limited big pharma investment</h3><p>To conduct the study, the scholars examined information collected by Citeline, a firm that maintains proprietary pharmaceutical-industry databases about drug development and clinical trials. The study reviewed 2,544 vaccine programs and 6,829 nonvaccine development programs. After an initial preclinical research and development phase, a drug candidate usually undergoes three formal trial phases in human subjects, the first generally aimed at examining its safety, and the next two more focused on efficacy.</p><p>Among other findings, the scholars identified lower success rates for drug-development programs outside of private industry — such as those led by investigators in academic hospitals. These efforts succeeded 6.8 percent of the time for vaccines and 8.2 percent of the time for therapeutics, something Lo chalks up to the smaller scale of many of the projects.</p><p>"Academic medical centers don't have the resources big pharma does," says Lo.</p><p>Lo also points out that the relatively low success rates for nonvaccine therapeutics, including antibiotics, "jumped out" at him. "I don't think people realize just how important antibiotics are, and how few of them we currently have in our medical arsenal," Lo adds. "We're just not investing enough resources into this critical field."</p><p>The researchers also found widely varying outcomes by types of illnesses. Out of 27 disease categories for which vaccine development efforts occurred, only 12 have seen drugs receive government approval. The disease type with the highest success rate, among those with more than one drug candidate, was rotavirus; in this category 78.7 percent of programs have been successful.</p><p>By contrast — and in addition to MERS, SARS, and Zika — HIV is a case with a notable lack of a successful vaccine, after hundreds of projects attempting to develop one.</p><p>Lo notes that only four of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies are heavily invested in vaccine development, down considerably from two decades ago — despite the fact that vaccines have easily the best odds of becoming successful drugs.</p><p>"This tells me that the economics of vaccines must be really challenging, if fewer and fewer big pharma companies are willing to commit resources to this business," Lo says. "If there's a silver lining to this terrible pandemic, it's that things are going to change in the aftermath of Covid-19."</p>
<h3>Why an "insurance" drug may be less profitable</h3><p>Indeed, Lo suggests, the specific economic challenge is that vaccines are the equivalent of "insurance," among medicines: We apply them to limit the cost of disasters, but do not always think to invest in them in advance. Many governments may not have perceived a need to develop and stockpile vaccines, thereby reducing the demand for vaccine research and making it less rewarding for private industry.</p><p>"Vaccines used to be [more] profitable," Lo says. "But over the course of the last 15-20 years, I think governments have started cutting budgets and ignoring issues that aren't clear and present dangers, perhaps expecting private insurers to pick up the slack. Unless there's an immediate threat to public health, it's really hard to get people to focus on it. It's like insurance … You don't think you're going to need it, until you do. And then it's usually too late."</p><p>That fiscal austerity may also have been combined with historical complacency, as past successes against smallpox, polio, and other diseases created a perception that terrible pandemics were a thing of the past.</p>
<p>In any case, Lo says, the data paints a clear picture: Vaccine research is both promising and underfunded.</p><p>"The reason we wrote this paper is to bring more awareness to this situation," Lo says. "Now that we've experienced the deadly consequences of a pandemic, the hope is that governments around the world — and it really has to be governments — will pay more attention."</p><p>Lo adds: "As the saying goes, 'crisis is a terrible thing to waste,' so we need to take advantage of this opportunity to come up with a more enduring solution, not just for this pandemic, but for all future pandemics, because inevitably another pandemic will emerge, whether its SARS, MERS, or some other pathogen we've never encountered. Thanks to a number of recent biomedical breakthroughs, we now have many more ways of creating anti-infectives than ever before — we just need the political will to do so."</p><p>The study drew upon research support from the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering and funding from The Rockefeller Foundation. Lo also helped found a consulting firm that analyzes drug development data.</p><p>Reprinted with permission of <a href="http://news.mit.edu/" target="_blank">MIT News</a>. Read the <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2020/how-often-vaccine-trials-succeed-0527" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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As belly size gets larger, the memory center in the brain gets smaller
Researchers at University College London link waist circumference with dementia.
30 June, 2020
Photos: Robyn Beck, Ronaldo Schemidt, Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images
- Researchers at University College London have discovered a link between waist circumference and dementia.
- Seventy-four percent of volunteers that developed dementia were overweight or obese.
- Women with central obesity had a 39 percent greater risk of dementia.
<p>One of every eight deaths in England was attributed to dementia in 2017. Considering the substantial public health burden this adds to a society, researchers at University College London wanted to understand the role of obesity on cognitive decline. A <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/doi/10.1093/ije/dyaa099/5861491" target="_blank">new study</a>, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, sheds light on this connection.</p><p>Obesity impacts a range of health problems, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, and dementia. Around the planet, obesity rates in adults have tripled since 1975. In 2016, an estimated 39 percent of adults in England were obese.</p><p>The researchers specifically wanted to know if waist circumference (WC) plays a role in increasing dementia rates. The team pulled data from 6,582 participants from the <a href="https://www.elsa-project.ac.uk/" target="_blank">English Longitudinal Study of Ageing</a>, an 18-year study (so far) featuring over 18,000 volunteers. </p><p>For this study, adults over age 50 were considered. They were broken into normal weight, overweight, and obese groups. Body Mass Index (BMI) was one of two markers used. The relevance of this particular measurement—(Weight in Pounds x 703) / (Height in inches x Height in inches)—has <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-useful-is-the-body-mass-index-bmi-201603309339" target="_blank">long been contested</a>. It does not account for muscle mass or how fat is distributed throughout the body. </p><p>The WC measurement, which the researchers refer to as <em>central obesity</em>, adds a bit of clarity to the study. They define excess central obesity as 35+ inches for women and 40+ inches for men.</p><p>In total, 6.9 percent of volunteers developed dementia over a (maximum) 15-year follow-up period. Seventy-four percent of participants that developed dementia were overweight or obese. These findings are independent of demographics, lifestyle behaviors, hypertension, diabetes, and APOE E-ε4, a genetic risk factor for dementia.</p><p>Notably, women with excessive central obesity had a 39 percent greater risk of developing dementia compared with non-central obese women.</p>
Mediterranean Diet Has Huge Health Benefits, New Study Finds | The New York Times
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f003c82b77eb38381dedb83ebf2e802a"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_JiKXdZwiIg?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>Co-author Andrew Steptoe, a professor of psychology and epidemiology at the university, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/23/health/belly-fat-dementia-link-wellness/index.html" target="_blank">sums up</a> the team's work:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Dementia is one of the major health challenges of the 21st century that could threaten successful aging of the population. Our findings suggest that rising obesity rates will compound the issue."</p><p>Dr. Dorina Cadar, a senior fellow at UCL and corresponding author of the study, suggests monitoring both BMI and WC status. Her suggestions include following a Mediterranean diet, reducing alcohol consumption, and regular exercise. </p><p>Dr. Richard Isaacson, the director of the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/23/health/belly-fat-dementia-link-wellness/index.html" target="_blank">says</a> that brain health and waist size are linked, especially for women.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Based on emerging data from studies like this, we are now able to clarify sex differences in dementia risk. Combining these findings with my clinical experience, I have seen greater impact on visceral fat on memory function in women, likely mediated by metabolic pathways."</p><p>This is another in a long list of studies linking obesity to cognitive problems, and serves as a reminder as to why <a href="https://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/does-lack-of-exercise-lead-to-dementia" target="_self">exercise</a> and <a href="https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/intermittent-fasting" target="_self">nutrition</a> remain your best defense against dementia. Regardless of the conveniences of modern society, human beings evolved during times of scarcity. We're not built for excess. Our brains pay the price when we indulge. </p><p><span></span>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://derekberes.substack.com/" target="_blank">Substack</a>. His next book is</em> "<em>Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."</em></p>
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What is an immunity passport and could it work?
In Chile, the so-called "release certificate" would free holders from all types of quarantine or restriction.
25 June, 2020
TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images
Weeks into lockdown and with economic indicators signalling a deep global recession, governments around the world are searching for ways to get their countries back up and running.
<p>But emerging from a cocooned state could risk a second spike of coronavirus infections as people start mixing once more. Among the measures being considered by governments including Chile, Germany, Italy, Britain and the US are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/chile-coronavirus-immunity-passport-antibody-testing-card/2020/04/20/8daef326-826d-11ea-81a3-9690c9881111_story.html" target="_blank">immunity passports</a> – a form of documentation given to those who have recovered from COVID-19.</p><p>In Chile, which looks set to become the first country to put such a scheme into action, the so-called "release certificate" would free holders from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-chile-recovered/chile-plans-release-certificates-for-recovered-coronavirus-patients-idUSKCN21R3EC" target="_blank">all types of quarantine or restriction</a>, Chilean Health Minister Jaime Mañalich said in April.</p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQxMzMzMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTMxNjEyMH0.DEd99jfLcCjVSPgn8gb7VxxhVjSKmeXBtKb0PfU9NW4/img.jpg?width=980" id="749f3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="32887ccbb14a103eb0bbd57bbb9b4004" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Coronavirus lives saved in Europe" />
Image: Statista
<h3>Premature release?</h3><p>But the idea has proved contentious, with the <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/immunity-passports-in-the-context-of-covid-19" target="_blank">World Health Organization (WHO) among those voicing criticism</a>. The root of the concern for many is the unknown degree to which past infection confers future immunity. Until it is understood whether or not people can be reinfected with the disease, and how long any immunity lasts for, the move may be premature.</p><p>In Chile's case, the certificate will <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31096-5/fulltext" target="_blank">expire three months after a confirmed infected person</a> has recovered. After this point, they will be considered to have the same risk of infection as anyone else. The government hopes the certificates will encourage diagnosed individuals to report results to the health ministry.</p><p>The WHO also raises questions about the validity of results from some of the tests on the market, which it says are not sufficiently sensitive or accurate.</p><p>False positives could lead people to think that they are safe from future infection, despite never having had the disease. False negatives would also mean infected people might fail to self-isolate. Advice from the WHO is that immunity certificates may in fact risk continued transmission of the virus, and lead to people ignoring public health advice.</p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQxMzMzNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDk0MjM1OX0.zw4bzGbVuTEqMnW1quNASIFwVfAQGTnBveSxwfKmAn4/img.jpg?width=980" id="1cb05" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="64e219c1a448552c2bec222de05c4f8f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="How far are we away from herd immunity." />
Image: Statista
<p>This could be a particular cause for concern given a number of recent studies have demonstrated that a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/16/21259492/covid-antibodies-spain-serology-study-coronavirus-immunity#" target="_blank">comparatively small population has been infected so far</a>, leaving the vast majority still vulnerable. Many countries are also bowing under the weight of the amount of testing required.</p><h3>Placing a value on recovery</h3><p>Some experts think enforcing two-tier restrictions on who can and cannot socialize or go to work also raises legal and practical concerns, and that it could have the adverse effect of incentivizing people to seek out infection to avoid being excluded.</p><p>And as such existing inequalities could worsen. Not least the economic divide, potentially exaggerated by some being excluded from work when others aren't.</p><p>"By replicating existing inequities, use of immunity passports would <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31034-5/fulltext#%20" target="_blank">exacerbate the harm inflicted by COVID-19 on already vulnerable populations</a>," Alexandra Phelan, a member of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, writes in The Lancet. Because of this, she says, they would be ripe for corruption.</p><p>Phelan also says immunity passports could risk providing some governments with an "apparent quick fix" that could result in them failing to adopt <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31034-5/fulltext" target="_blank">economic policies to protect health and welfare</a>.</p><p>Alongside advances in vaccines and creating the infrastructure to deliver them, investment in testing and tracing is seen by many as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01451-0" target="_blank">key to limiting further spread of the virus</a>. The <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/briefingnote/wcms_745963.pdf" target="_blank">International Labour Organization</a> is among the bodies that say this could play an effective role in getting people back to work.</p><p>Reprinted with permission of the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/immunity-passport-quarantine-work-covid-19/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Here’s what traveling could be like after COVID-19
We will travel again, but it will not be the same.
21 May, 2020
Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
COVID-19 has upended global travel and brought the world to a standstill.
<p>
For the first time in history, close to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/01/more-than-nine-in-ten-people-worldwide-live-in-countries-with-travel-restrictions-amid-covid-19/" target="_blank">90% of the world's population</a> now lives in countries with travel restrictions. Airlines, travel companies and the tourism sector as a whole are among the most affected businesses. An estimated <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-airlines-iata/battered-consumer-confidence-to-slow-airlines-recovery-iata-idUSKCN2231RH" target="_blank">25 million aviation jobs</a> and <a href="https://wttc.org/News-Article/WTTC-now-estimates-over-100-million-jobs-losses-in-the-Travel-&-Tourism-sector-and-alerts-G20-countries-to-the-scale-of-the-crisis" target="_blank">100 million travel and tourism jobs</a> are at risk. Between five and seven years' worth of <a href="https://www.unwto.org/impact-assessment-of-the-covid-19-outbreak-on-international-tourism" target="_blank">industry growth will potentially be lost</a>.
</p><p><a href="https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/publications/economic-reports/air-passenger-monthly-analysis---mar-2020/" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="https://assets.weforum.org/editor/w2NEINKGfaQ5sJds1G61xoss0lPnbTuk-Uy1_3L603A.png"></a></p><p>Air passenger volume as measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs). Passenger demand has fallen at an unprecedented rate. (Image: IATA)</p><p>We will travel again, but it will not be the same. Even if borders reopen, travellers must trust that boarding a plane is safe and that they will be able to enter the destination country. New health safety protocols and systems will need to be in place, and these have yet to be defined. As governments and industry plan for recovery in this new context and adapt to changing traveller behaviour, the use of digital identity and biometrics technologies could restore trust while also ensuring a seamless journey. However, these tools will only be effective if users feel that their data is protected. Privacy, consent and transparent data governance must be at the heart of any technical solution.</p><p>
Here are two key areas of transformation in which digital technologies will shape the future of travel.
</p>
<h3>Touchless travel</h3><p>The most immediate and perhaps most visible change will be a shift to touchless travel from airport curbside to hotel check-in. Even with strict cleaning protocols in place, exchanging travel documents and touching surfaces through check-in, security, border control, and boarding still represent a significant risk of infection for both travellers and staff.</p><p>Automation across the entire sector will become the new norm. Biometrics are already a widely accepted solution for identity verification, and their use will become more widespread as physical fingerprint and hand scanners are phased out. More touchless options will come into play including contactless fingerprint, as well as iris and face recognition. Moreover, technology for touchless data-entry such as gesture control, touchless document scanning and voice commands are already being tested. Care must be taken to ensure these technologies are inclusive and to eliminate the risk of potential biases.</p>
<h3>Digital health passports</h3><p>From now on, health could be embedded in every aspect of travel. According to a survey by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), measures such as visible sanitizing, screening and masks all increase passengers' feelings of safety when thinking about travelling after COVID-19.</p><p>To date, there is no standard or agreement on the acceptable level of risk for reopening borders or allowing individuals to travel. Until a vaccine is developed, the focus is shifting to assessing the risk of individual passengers. With the passenger's consent, travel companies and airlines could use personal data such as their age, underlying health conditions and travel history to compile an individual risk profile.</p><p>Efforts to develop health protocols and standards using digital technology for the travel and tourism industry <a href="https://wttc.org/News-Article/WTTC-outlines-what-the-new-normal-will-look-like-as-we-start-to-travel" target="_blank">are still in their initial stages</a>. In the meantime, airlines such as <a href="https://www.emirates.com/media-centre/emirates-becomes-first-airline-to-conduct-on-site-rapid-covid-19-tests-for-passengers/" target="_blank">Emirates are conducting on-site COVID-19</a> testing for passengers. <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4f4ad557-7ea2-4d75-90e8-22137a939cb8" target="_blank">European airports</a> have begun drawing up industry guidelines for passenger health screening. While not new, the use of thermal cameras at airports is becoming more widespread. A number of symptom-tracking and contact-tracing apps now exist in many countries. Apple and Google are close to finalizing a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52415593" target="_blank">contact-tracing software scheme</a> for developers to build compatible apps.</p><p>New health-screening and tracking tools offer hope of a return to relaxed and confident travel. However, they have also brought privacy and data issues to the forefront of the discussion. Any solutions need to be transparent and secure if travellers are to embrace them. Data should be shared on an 'authorized to know' and 'need to know' basis, with informed consent and in line with applicable regulations.</p>
<h3>The digital traveller</h3><p>Many organisations are already well advanced in their digital journey. This must be accelerated to enable the new normal, help businesses to adapt to changed consumer behaviour and rebuild trust. Integrated digital identity solutions are key to realising touchless travel. They also allow organizations to draw on multiple data points to efficiently assess a person's risk profile, enabling them to manage risks in real time.</p><p>The World Economic Forum's <a href="https://ktdi.org/" target="_blank">Known Traveller Digital Identity</a> initiative is an example of such an approach. This initiative brings together a global consortium of individuals, governments, authorities and the travel industry to facilitate safe and seamless journeys. Consortium partners can access verifiable claims of a traveller's identity data to improve passenger processing and reduce risk. Travellers can manage their own profile, collect digital 'attestations' of their identity data and decide which information to share.</p><p>In a COVID-19 context, a traveller would be able to securely obtain and store trusted, verifiable health credentials such as immunizations or their health status in their digital identity wallets. This would be combined with other trusted, verifiable identity data from public or private entities.</p><p>Testing and health screening at airports is difficult to achieve at scale. Under schemes like Known Traveller Digital Identity, travellers would be able to consent to sharing their identity and health data in advance of the journey, allowing border officials to conduct any required risk assessments in advance of the journey while avoiding queuing and bottlenecks at airports.</p>
<h3>Collaboration is key</h3><p>In this time of unprecedented change, governments and industry have a unique opportunity to redefine travel and build a more sustainable, agile, and resilient industry. This will not be possible without collaboration.</p><p>In the near term, stakeholders will need to cooperate to accelerate the use of digital technologies. Next, they will need to develop a cohesive policy and legal regime around the deployment of digital technologies that balance the protection of civil liberties and public health. The third challenge is to ensure that different digital identity solutions can operate together. The role of organizations such as the World Health Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) will be critical to align health and aviation priorities, guidelines and policies.</p><p>Paper passports are still required as the main form of identity for travellers. In a contactless world, the adoption of standardized <a href="https://www.icao.int/Meetings/TRIP-Symposium-2019/PublishingImages/Pages/Presentations/Digital%20Travel%20Credentials.pdf" target="_blank">digital travel credentials</a> and initiatives like <a href="https://www.iata.org/en/programs/passenger/one-id/" target="_blank">IATA's ONE ID concept</a>, which promote the use of biometrics for a smoother journey, must be accelerated and adapted to this new context.</p><p>Ultimately, the pandemic is likely to speed up two trends that have been gathering steam for some time. One is seamless travel, where your face and body are your passport. The other is the idea of a decentralized identity. This means the individual is in possession of and controls their identity attributes, such as their date and place of birth and physical characteristics, but also travel history, health information and other data. Combined, these trends will ensure travel is enjoyable, efficient and safe.</p><p>Reprinted with permission of the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/this-is-what-travelling-will-be-like-after-covid-19/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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