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.