Health Tracking Devices and COVID-19

Students at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, will no longer be required to wear a health tracking device when they return to campus in September, due to student pushback.

The university’s policy previously required students living in university residence halls to sport the BioButton, a device that monitors in real time the wearer’s vitals – including heart rate, respiratory rate and temperature – to detect symptoms often associated with COVID-19. Yahoo Life notes that “more schools may have fluid policies while attempting to control the spread of COVID-19 on campus.”

Richard Watkins, M.D., an infectious disease physician in Akron, Ohio, and a professor of internal medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical University, was one of the experts interviewed by Yahoo Life about such devices.

Read the discussion about health tracking devices in Yahoo Life.