updated May 11th, 2020
COVID-19 has truly been a test of business leaders and the team members they lead. The speed at which businesses had to respond to the COVID crisis and the magnitude of change the responses required are still hard to grasp.
One can only trust that leaders across the world understand more than ever that our employees are people with children, significant others, homes, dogs, cats and even "dragons"!
Now the we are all faced with the challenge of attempting to return to some kind of new normal. One of the front lines of defense being recommended is temperature scanning of everyone entering into a commercial space. With this requirement come many concerns ranging from exact implementation, safety of those doing the temperature monitoring, privacy compliance of the collected data, speed of deployment and cost to deploy such measures.
The FDA has issued some guidance on the temperature scanning in high throughput areas. Click here for the FDA's Enforcement Policy for Telethermographic Systems During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Public Health Emergency. A quoted section of this guidance states:
"Fever is a common symptom of COVID-19, typically appearing 2-14 days after exposure. Telethermographic systems are able to determine surface skin temperature, which is then used to estimate the temperature at a reference body site (e.g., oral, tympanic membrane). The advantage of using telethermographic systems for initial temperature assessment for triage use is the potential use in high throughput areas (e.g., airports, businesses, warehouses, factories) and in settings where other temperature assessment products may be in short supply. The available scientific literature supports the use of telethermographic systems in the context of initial human temperature measurement."
Our commercial building security and access control engineering team is actively reviewing all the options available. Stand alone systems range from roughly $2,500 to more sophisticated cameras interfaced and fully integrated with access control systems can range up to $25,000.
We are excited to announce that our high end surveillance partners are actively working on a AI solution that can not only detect temperature but also validate if masks are being worn, social distancing is being enforced, etc. We are very excited to see how technology can be deployed to solve this concern!
We are now partnering with FLIR Thermo-imaging camera systems to offer a turn-key solution for touch-less, accurate (+/- 0.25 degrees C) screening. FLIR brings over 10 years of experience in this market segment with a production based in Sweden.
The package solution offered by FLIR is based on the use of the FLIR A400 Thermal Core and Smart Sensor Package. Please contact Midtown Now for our expertly configured package offering.
As we learn more we will update this post with additional information. Stay tuned!