One of the top infectious disease experts of the United States said that coronavirus temperature screenings through infrared thermometers are “notoriously inaccurate.”
On Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said that temperature checks are unreliable for the detection of COVID-19 symptoms in people who are entering businesses and other establishments.
Infrared thermometers have been used as part of the safety protocol for reopening the nation amid the ongoing crisis. However, Dr. Fauci made a contradictory statement by saying that they are unreliable and inaccurate.
During a Facebook Live broadcast with Walter Reed Medical Center, Dr. Fauci said, “We have found at the [National Institutes of Health] that it is much, much better to just question people when they come in and save the time because the temperatures are notoriously inaccurate many times.”
Dr. Fauci, who is also one of the key members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, explained that hot summer weather could also lead to inaccurate readings, adding that his own temperature readings went around 103F before entering a building’s air-conditioning.
Before his comments, some officials criticized measures like temperature screenings, spraying disinfectants in public transport, and walking through sanitizer showers, calling them “Safety Theater,” which means they are proven to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Temperature checks could backfire because not everyone with COVID-19 will have fever so contagious people could be cleared to enter places where they could infect other people, according to The Atlantic.
In February, when the pandemic was at its peak, 11 million people in China were required to screen their body temperatures every day, which worked frantically to control the spread of the virus. However, by the end of February, scientists said the practice was not as effective as previously thought.
In July, Bruce Lee, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the City University of New York, wrote, “All in all, temperature screening may catch some cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus. But it could miss many others. Thus, be skeptical whenever anyone tries to assure you that things are safe just because they are doing temperature and symptom screening.”
Many companies have started using infrared cameras that can detect people with temperatures above 100 degrees F, according to the New York Times.
However, The Atlantic said these crowd-scanning infrared cameras could be less accurate than the manual versions pointed at people’s foreheads. The infrared cameras are also less likely to detect mild fevers. Remember, the most accurate temperature readings usually come from thermometers placed under a person’s tongue, armpit, or rectum.
