A senior military doctor revealed Sunday that the Pentagon has developed a microchip that, when inserted into the human body, can detect COVID-19.
What are the details?
Dr. Matt Hepburn, a retired army colonel and infectious disease doctor, told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a top-secret military unit established during the Cold War, developed the technology of “subdermal implants” to prevent pandemic diseases of debilitating military resources.
COVID-19, for example, managed to sideline the USS Theodore Roosevelt, one of the U.S. Navy’s critical aircraft carriers, for nearly two months last spring, when nearly 1,300 sailors tested positive for COVID.
According to CBS News, the device “is not a fearsome government microchip to track every movement, but a tissue-like gel designed to test blood continuously.”
Hepburn compared the technology to an “engine control light.”
“It’s a sensor,” he explained. “That little green thing that’s in there, you put it under your skin and what it tells you is that there are chemical reactions inside your body and that the signal means you’ll have symptoms tomorrow.”
The device therefore allows military personnel to discover their state of infection before they begin to infect other people.
“The sailors would get the signal, then they would administer a blood draw for themselves and test it on the spot. We can have that information in three or five minutes,” Hepburn said. “As you truncate that time, as you diagnose and treat, what you do is stop the infection.”
A sensor that can tell you if you are sick
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How many soldiers have the “sensor”?
Hepburn did not provide additional details about the so-called “sensor” beyond explaining its basic functionality and saying that the device “is now in the final testing phase.”
It is unclear how many U.S. servicemen are walking around with the device.
And while active-duty soldiers may not have an option to receive the microchip if the Pentagon gives it the green light, there would certainly be a great reluctance to receive the device.
In fact, American soldiers even hesitate to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Publicly, the military has said a third of troops choose not to receive the vaccine, although CNN reported that, citing military sources, the actual percentage could be closer to half.