It’s now been more than a year since the Covid-19 pandemic began spreading across the United States, and schools and universities continue to face enormous challenges opening and operating facilities and educating students through it all.
From testing issues and staff shortages to the impact of online instruction, the coronavirus has placed a heavy burden on students, families, teachers and staff. Millions of K-12 students still are taking their classes remotely with limited options for in-person learning.
Schools systems have had to fend for themselves to determine the most optimal ways to navigate obstacles and safely bring students back to classrooms. Even as vaccine distribution—including availability for teachers—slowly ramps up, there’s no denying a long road remains before reaching any semblance of normalcy in schools.
To date, keeping faculty, students and their surrounding communities safe has been paramount. Tactics to accomplish this range from obvious and effective measures—mask requirements, social distancing and readily available sanitizing stations—to exploring lesser known technologies that can help monitor the large numbers of students and staff passing through school doors on a daily basis.
The essential challenge is keeping those who have contracted Covid-19 from entering schools and campus buildings. There is no certainty that screening will lead to the discovery of virus carriers—some who are carrying the virus may be asymptomatic—but monitoring those who come and go in a facility can be a first line of defense to identify people with detectable symptoms, such as elevated skin temperature.
Thermal temperature screening technology can play a role in preventing Covid-19 outbreaks and further spread in school facilities. Administrators across all educational environments may want to consider whether the technology should be part of their Covid-19 mitigation efforts.
Infrared thermal imaging may be most familiar to firefighters, home inspectors, and fans of Hollywood’s Predator movie franchise, but this technology also may be used to quickly provide an initial assessment of a person’s body temperature—while adhering to the social distancing requirements brought on by the pandemic. The technology been used globally for years as a fast, non-invasive way to measure skin temperature.
Thermal scanning products are designed and calibrated to quickly automate body temperature screening by using skin temperature as a proxy. Unlike handheld infrared thermometers, which require close contact between two subjects, the sensors for thermal scanners offer contactless operation from a safe distance. In a matter of seconds, sensors automatically detect a face, identify the most reliable features for measurement and display an alert if the readings are warmer than the customizable alarm temperature.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) encourages parents of K-12 students to monitor symptoms at home. But this imposes a high level of responsibility and trust on each family; it may be presumptuous to assume people are diligently following this recommendation. Administrators may choose to put an additional layer of defense in place to identify the presence of students and staff members who have elevated temperatures as they enter a school or campus facility.
Even the mere presence of a monitoring system can act as a powerful deterrent. Instead of “toughing it out” and coming to school regardless of how they feel, people may opt to stay home rather than enter a facility.
To be clear, thermal imaging systems are just a singular component of a broader strategy to create safer and more healthful environments as schools and universities make plans to reopen their classrooms. Administrators should keep in mind a number of factors to consider when considering thermal imaging:
•Affordability: Can the cost of this technology be justified? When schools secure additional funding, a number of priorities should be addressed, including rapid testing, staffing needs and teacher salaries. Some high-quality sensors can provide an affordable way to increase health protections at educational facilities at scale—especially important for colleges and universities with large numbers of entrances.
•FDA Compliance: Select a thermal screening system that meets guidelines for initial body temperature assessment that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued with regard to Covid-19. This means sourcing a system that meets the agency’s accuracy specificationband one made for single-person screening from a fixed distance. Having a reference heat source situated next to the subject ensures there’s a constant temperature reference point to provide the most accurate readings.
•Privacy: Consider a system that will give a school or university full control over collected data, from enabling the collection of absolutely no data to completely anonymous temperature scanning data.
Thermal imaging technology can be used to detect elevated temperatures associated with potentially ill people. Temperature screening products alone cannot diagnose or exclude the presence of Covid-19 or any other disease or condition. But, when used correctly, these systems offer fast and effective ways to conduct an initial temperature assessment and provide daily health checks as recommended by the CDC. For some systems, no existing technology infrastructure, hardware or expertise is necessary to get started.
Schools and universities (and businesses and institutions in the private sector) were caught off guard by the pandemic, and widespread confusion and disruption resulted. But what schools and universities have learned from dealing with Covid-19 can be applied to the future.
Establishing strategic protocols and tools, like those that quickly and efficiently monitor for potentially sick staff and students, can help schools protect against Covid-19 while also equipping them to protect against new and future outbreaks—reason enough for administrators to consider thermal scanning in educational facilities.
