Dogs being used to detect Covid in Thailand

I didn't even know this was possible until now but dogs are pretty amazing creatures so if this is actually true then I'm for it. There is the little problem I have with the government and especially the Thai government of kind of being full of shit that makes me believe that these dogs can't actually do what it is suggested they can.

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I don't mean to be a cynic, and I also know that dogs can be trained to do some pretty amazing stuff but I also feel as though the tests that we humans have are already flawed and filled with false positives and false negatives so if these dogs end up falsely identifying something I think that it will probably be the people who trained them that are to blame. If they are accurate, this certainly seems like a much better way of detecting stuff than by shoving Q-tips up people's noses and throats though - so let's just say that I am hopeful that this actually works.

The dogs are going to initially be released (with a guide of course) on to the streets of Bangkok and apparently they are able to detect Covid in human sweat with an accuracy rate of 95%. Now there is just the question of the fact that the streets of Bangkok are also filled with stray an sometimes vicious dogs. It might be a little difficult for these trained dogs to stay focused if they are constantly being harassed by wild packs of stray dogs. Hopefully this has been taken into consideration.

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Thailand isn't the only country to begin using this method but they are, as far as I know, to use it in any sort of mass scale or to have it in a "roaming" sense. There are various places in the world including the USA where dog trainers and scientists are working on training dogs to get the job done in a much more proficient manner than the PCR or any other test.

From what I have heard the dogs can detect Covid in human sweat and at least for me in Thailand 90% of the year, it won't be terribly difficult for me to produce a sample for these dogs. Some days my city is so hot that the walk from the shower to the closet where I keep my clothes is hot enough that I need another shower by the time I get dressed.

I would imagine that if the dogs can do it with sweat that saliva would work as well. I don't know about this though, I am just speculating at this point.

I sincerely hope that this is true because if it is, imagine how this could seriously improve the time-frames on just about everything that is Covid-testing oriented especially if other secretions (such as saliva) can be used as well. They could do a tongue swab of everyone queueing up for something into a merry-go-round type thing like is pictured above and things could get moving a lot faster.

It is kind of funny to me that with all of our technological improvements over the years, that a dog's natural sense of smell and affinity towards work and humans works better than anything that we have been able to develop.

I just hope that it isn't another BS public relations stint on the part of the government here because anyone that has lived here for a while knows how much a politician loves to have their picture taken next to some project that they actually didn't have anything to do with.

For now I am going to remain optimistic because if this works it could really help this country with their plan to reopen tourism in a mere 13 days from right now.