The “smart” Eva artificial intelligence system used by Greece – probably the only one in Europe to do so – to control Covid-19 incoming travelers in the summer of 2020 has been much more effective than if the tests were done by chance. This helped our country to keep its borders open with greater security and, in addition, allowed it to be a pioneering example internationally.
The above results from the evaluation of the system and the corresponding reinforcing learning algorithm, which was made in a new publication in the journal “Nature” and which is co-signed by, among others, the main creator of Eva Kimon Drakopoulos (University of Southern California-Los Angeles) and Professors Sotiris Tsiodras, Gikas Majorkinis, Dimitris Paraskevi, Pagona Lagiou and Christos Hadjichristodoulou (the first four from the Medical School of the University of Athens and the last four from the Medical School of the University of Thessaly).
The researchers say that Eva – which allowed more targeted checks based on specific criteria – detected almost twice as many asymptomatic coronavirus-infected travelers (1.85 times more) than if the border checks had been done by chance. If the tests had been done randomly, it is estimated that about 54% of the cases that the “smart” system detected would have been detected.
In addition, Eva identified 1.25 to 1.45 times more asymptomatic infected travelers than they would have found if the test policy had been based on epidemiological criteria alone, as other countries have done. In fact, at the peak of the tourist season, he identified two to four times more asymptomatic than expected.
Link to the scientific publication:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04014-z
SOURCE: AMNA
