"Vocalis, a voice-analysis company with offices in Israel and the United States, had previously built a smartphone app that could detect flare-ups of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease by listening for signs that users were short of breath when speaking. The firm wanted to do the same thing with COVID-19. People who had tested positive for the coronavirus could participate simply by downloading a Vocalis research app. Once a day, they fired up the app and spoke into their phones, describing an image aloud and counting from 50 to 70. Then Vocalis began processing these recordings with its machine-learning system, alongside the voices of people who had tested negative for the disease, in an attempt to identify a voiceprint for the illness. By mid-summer, the firm had more than 1,500 voice samples and a pilot version of a digital COVID-19 screening tool. The tool, which the company is currently testing around the world, is not intended to provide a definitive diagnosis, but to help clinicians triage potential cases, identifying people who might be most in need of testing, quarantine or in-person medical care. “Can we help with our AI algorithm?” asks Tal Wenderow, the president and chief executive of Vocalis. “This is not invasive, it’s not a drug, we’re not changing anything. All you need to do is speak.”"