Can Dogs Smell COVID? This is What Science Says!

There have been many articles out there which say that canines can detect coronavirus infections with remarkable accuracy.  However, researchers say that larger studies are needed to validate completely.  A lot of people do not realize this, but several dogs around the globe are being training to detect the small of COVID-19 infections.  There are many dogs’ trainings who are claiming amazing results – going to the extreme of saying that the dogs can detect the virus with almost perfect accuracy. Scientists are revealing that canines can help control the pandemic by “sniffing out” those who are infected.

Very important…Most of these findings have not yet been peer reviewed or published, making it hard for the wider scientific community to evaluate the claims.  Some researchers wonder if the process can be scaled up to a level that would allow the animals to make a meaningful impact.  The International K9 Team met in an online workshop in early November 2020.  They shared the preliminary results from various experiments and explained how to improve them.

Humans have taken advantage of the dog’s strong sense of smell for many years.  Dogs’ noses bear 300 million scent receptors, compared with the human’s 6 million.  This said, researchers do not know for sure what the dogs are smelling, but many suspects that these illnesses cause the human body to let off a distinct pattern of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).  It appears that groups need to boost their sample sizes before the wider scientific community can evaluate how useful dogs may be.  You just never know…dogs may play an even bigger role in getting America back to “normal”.