The app already requires its users measure their temperature daily (to track when they are likely to be ovulating), but with this new technology it can detect whether they are experiencing an unusually elevated body temperature before it reaches the point of a fever. Considering COVID-19 has an ‘incubation period’ of 5 days to 2 weeks (meaning the time a person is contagious without knowing they have been infected) this function is especially useful.

Plus, users can enter other symptoms commonly associated with the virus, including a dry cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle or joint pain, sore throat, headache and diarrhoea.

Natural Cycles co-founder and CEO Elina Berglund says that since the COVID-19 outbreak, users have become far “more diligent” in entering their data.

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Many of our Cyclers have been asking how to measure for a fever with their basal thermometer out of concern around the coronavirus (COVID-19). You can use your thermometer as you normally would while taking your daily basal body temperature. The CDC considers a person to have a fever when they have a measured temperature of 100.4° F (38° C) or greater. If you think you have been exposed to COVID-19 and develop a fever and symptoms of respiratory illness, such as cough or difficulty breathing, call your healthcare provider. Natural Cycles is able to detect unusually elevated body temperature and will automatically exclude it from the algorithm. If this happens, we will send you a message in the app to let you know.

A post shared by Natural Cycles (@naturalcycles) on Mar 12, 2020 at 9:29am PDT

View this post on Instagram

Many of our Cyclers have been asking how to measure for a fever with their basal thermometer out of concern around the coronavirus (COVID-19). You can use your thermometer as you normally would while taking your daily basal body temperature. The CDC considers a person to have a fever when they have a measured temperature of 100.4° F (38° C) or greater. If you think you have been exposed to COVID-19 and develop a fever and symptoms of respiratory illness, such as cough or difficulty breathing, call your healthcare provider. Natural Cycles is able to detect unusually elevated body temperature and will automatically exclude it from the algorithm. If this happens, we will send you a message in the app to let you know.

A post shared by Natural Cycles (@naturalcycles) on Mar 12, 2020 at 9:29am PDT

“The last few weeks we have been seeing changes in how our users use the app as the situation in the world is rapidly changing due to the new coronavirus,” she said.

 “We asked ourselves how we can better help our users, as well as the medical community, and immediately dedicated internal resources to release our COVID-19 symptom trackers functionality to users everywhere on an expedited timeline.”

Still, Berglund stresses that the app is “in no way intended to replace a professional medical diagnosis or treatment.”

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