Yale researchers develop wearable clip to measure COVID-19 exposure

Scientists can now tell the levels of COVID-19 in the air around you.
Researchers at Yale University have developed what they are calling a Fresh Air Clip.
They say the clip attaches anywhere on your clothes, and could be a real game changer for people who work in close contact with the public.
Inside the clip is a polymer film that collects airborne particles.
It's that surface that gets tested when the entire clip is sent back to a lab.
"We use similar methods to the swab test. If you were to get a nasal swab COVID test, they use general PCR technology and that's what we use for our detection as well," said Darryl Angel, a Ph.D. candidate at Yale's Department of Environmental Engineering.
"If the people were exposed to a high level we will inform them to take some steps to get tested or get quarantined," said Dong Gao, post-doctoral associate at the Yale School of Public Health.
The sampler was developed over a year ago by Krystal Pollitt, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, and an assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering at Yale.
Workers were asked to wear it for 5 days.
"We deployed 62 of our fresh air clips between community members in Connecticut going about their daily activities as well as restaurant servers, homeless shelter workers and within health care facilities," Angel said.
The wearable clip is not yet available to the public, but it will be relatively inexpensive.
It's only being used at health care facilities.
Yale University researchers say the device is not yet able to detect specific variants, but does have the capability.