CMU School of Drama


Monday, April 05, 2021

Can These Beagles Save Live Events?

LiveDesignOnline: Andrew Gumper, founder and CEO of AG Production Services, has a plan to make the live entertainment industry safe enough to fully reopen for everyone, not just audiences and performers, but production crews as well. Gumper had heard of service dogs being used to remind diabetics in need of insulin or tip off a patient who is about to have a seizure, and determined to find out if dogs could be used to identify people with Covid-19.

4 comments:

Rhiannnon said...

I was sceptical at this at first because I thought that beagles were too cute and it was basically clickbait but nooooo beagles can detect viruses like the swine flu so they have recently been breed to detect Covid-19. They are actually 79-100% accurate in detecting covid which is better than the 15 min tests which are only %60-93 accurate. So they are actually more effective for companies to invest in Beagles than rapid covid tests!! There are a few reasons why they could be inaccurate though. Like mentioned in the article, sanitizer, perfumes or lotions can interfere with the smell of covid. Next, K9 units are more likey to give false positives to make their handler happy if they see they anxious so the handler needs to remain pretty unemotional and only give treats when they accurately detect the virus.
anyway, BEAGLES ARE SO CUTE I WANT TO BE GREETED BY THESE PUPPIES EVERYWHERE. I approve.

Alexa Janoschka said...

we need more dog content in the Newsfeed please and thank you. Dogs are so cool, if any of this is true that is really cool that dogs can detect COVID. The hardest part about college and living on campus??? Not being able to have a dog, sad. Maybe if I tell CMU that I am training a dog to detect COVID then they will let me have a dog. I want to go to a NASCAR event just to see one of these dogs in action. It is interesting to read about how you don't want to cross-train dogs because they might be searching for something other than the virus and then they could confuse what is being searched for. I think that if you used the dogs and the COVID test as a way to ensure that crews and events were safe then you would have a pretty strong way to detect what is going on. If the dog detects something, then have the person take the test (but then again how would you know if the dog was missing something) there are so many variables.

Gabriela Fonseca Luna said...

I love this idea! How practical it ends up being is another issue, but sniffer dogs can be a solution to our current issue. Beagles are generally easy dogs to upkeep, not too big that it would scare children and I have heard very receptive to training. Obviously, I do not expect the group or anyone else who knows of this project to treat this as a viable solution. There is no way that possibly millions of beagles would be bred for this purpose, plus training and distributing them; it logically does not make sense. However, it is still a good alternative for certain events. Like one-off gigs or working under a “borrowing” system amongst those interested. I do find it very amusing how quickly this began being in the works. According to the article, the idea was conceived and began early stages of testing back in March, which sounds bizarre considering the relatively fast turnaround.

Jonah Carleton said...

This is everything I have ever wanted or needed in a COVID test. It is honestly shocking that dogs are able to smell an infection, or really any medical condition. And the fact that it is reported to be 79-100% accurate? Crazy. It seems a little late to start implementing this in any meaningful way, but it couldn't hurt to try. I wouldn't say no being greeted by an army of beagles before going to any live event.
After a quick google I have learned that it is possible for dogs to get COVID, so I thank these beagles in advance for putting themselves at risk for our safety. Apparently, pets don't really spread to humans, but you are still not supposed to let them interact with other pets outside of your household. Maybe someone can make these beagles some doggy hand sanitizers and masks (unless that would stop them from smelling the COVID).