Do forehead thermometers really work as COVID-19 precaution?
Before greeting his co-workers and beginning a workday at Ohio State Cancer University's James Cancer Hospital, Abood Sohub is met with a thermometer "gun" just inches from his head, a procedure now commonplace in a world wrestling with the effects of COVID-19.
Across area hospitals, grocery stores, dental offices and local gyms, these devices, known as non-contact infrared thermometers, are used as an initial defense against potential COVID-19 carriers who have a fever. The thermometer gun measures a person’s surface temperature without making contact with their skin.
But Sohub, who works as a patient care assistant in the hospital’s emergency department, said he operates with the same level of precaution even though the thermometers are being wielded throughout the building.
These devices have proved to be an inefficient barrier when used outside controlled health care spaces, resulting in abnormally high or low readings. Often, they aren’t held at an appropriate distance to produce an accurate reading, and the reading is affected by the room temperature, according to the federal Food and Drug Administration.
Kelli Newman, director of public affairs and communications at Columbus Public Health, said thermometer guns can be used for general screening but shouldn’t be the only defense against potential COVID-19 exposure.
“We wouldn’t just rely on that,” Newman said. “We would ask if they were having any symptoms, if they were around anyone with symptoms of COVID-19 or have been around someone who has had COVID-19. So, it’s more like a general screening.”
Columbus State Community College student D’Oneedria Jones said that once at a required check-in for school, she was clocked in at 64.7 degrees. Any temperature that’s below 70 degrees or above 104 is considered a life-threatening emergency. The average human body temperature is 98.6 degrees.
“I personally think that they are inaccurate,” Jones said. “The reading is never consistent. There isn’t an accurate way to check it; every time I get my check done, it’s someone new doing it, and it’s a completely different way than the last person.”
But even an accurate temperature sensor doesn’t recognize everyone carrying the coronavirus. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, infected people might take several days to develop a fever, and some might take fever-reducing medication that suppresses their symptoms.
It’s hard to say what precautions should be in place, Sohub said, but more needs to be done to safeguard high-capacity environments.
“They can be really helpful if they are used properly,” he said. “However, they need to do more things to tell who is sick or having symptoms of COVID. Also, they need to have the people who are doing these temperature checks understand what is considered a fever.”
Newman urges everyone to follow CDC guidelines. Maintain a safe distance, wear a mask and, if symptoms develop, stay home, she said.