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Honored Contributor
Posts: 13,510
Registered: ‎05-23-2010

Re: Taking Temperature

[ Edited ]

@Anonymous032819 wrote:

A lot of places are implementing the requirement of taking a person's temperature before a service is done.

 

Is this providing a false sense of security?

 

 

The reason that I ask that is because one can have the virus, and not have an elevated temperature.

 

 

Just because someone registers 98.6 on the thermometer, doesn't mean that they don't have the virus.

 

 

So, is the act of scanning someone's forehead, just to make us feel better, "Covid theater", if you will?

 

 

I'm all for wearing masks and not touching each other, but taking temperature?

 

 

I'm admittedly on the fence about.

 

 

 

Discuss.


@Anonymous032819 @This process helps to eliminate those showing possible symptoms from entering the premises. It can cut down on the number of contagious individuals present. It won't stop those that are presymptomatic, asymptomatic or symptomatic without a temperature. It could also indicate a fever from some cause other than COVID-19.It is not meant to be a 100% accurate preventative. It's part of a group of strategies that together help eliminate risk. If it proves to give some a false sense of security than the fault lies with inadequate education about this measure, not with the measure itself. I am very supportive of this strategy. Persons displaying a temperature should go home, retake their temperature and if they have a temperature, stay home. One problem with it is that different places use different temperature readings as their indication of fever. 

Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,892
Registered: ‎03-20-2010

A person can have a fever for a whole host of things that have nothing to do with this virus. 

Someday, when scientists discover the center of the Universe....some people will be disappointed it is not them.
Honored Contributor
Posts: 8,736
Registered: ‎02-19-2014

It's a good way to identify workers who are going to work sick. It happens a lot, especially in part time and hourly jobs where they really can't take time off to stay home and be sick. HR or management can stop them at the door and send them home.

 

It's useful. If someone considers a normal temp as a reason to be falsely confident, well they are probably like that all the time anyway. I would wonder what would happen if someone were tested mid hot flash, though. The reaction and recognition might depend on whether the temp monitoring person were a middle aged or older woman or not.

When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
Esteemed Contributor
Posts: 5,892
Registered: ‎03-20-2010

@Porcelain wrote:

It's a good way to identify workers who are going to work sick. It happens a lot, especially in part time and hourly jobs where they really can't take time off to stay home and be sick. HR or management can stop them at the door and send them home.

 

It's useful. If someone considers a normal temp as a reason to be falsely confident, well they are probably like that all the time anyway. I would wonder what would happen if someone were tested mid hot flash, though. The reaction and recognition might depend on whether the temp monitoring person were a middle aged or older woman or not.


A bacterial infection such as a UTI can cause a fever, should a person be sent home for that?

Someday, when scientists discover the center of the Universe....some people will be disappointed it is not them.
Honored Contributor
Posts: 10,432
Registered: ‎05-15-2016

Yes. 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 15,523
Registered: ‎09-01-2010

I have no faith whatsoever in temperature scans.   

 

Last May I took my husband of 45 years to the ER in visible distress.   I knew he was running a high fever by the way he looked and acted.   I got the side eye roll from the ER nurse when she scanned his forehead and got a reading below normal.   I told her the reading was inaccurate, as my husband takes high doses of 3 meds with analgesic effects every day, and he had already had 2 doses of meds by that time of day.   His blood work told the real story, and most likely he walked in with a temperature of 103.   He remembers none of the hours in ER; only the time spent in the bed upstairs.   

Valued Contributor
Posts: 794
Registered: ‎04-20-2020

Mr Urban, the man who owns a football team, was interviewed last night on one of the talking head shows and he said that taking 3 extra strength tylenol before a scan test shows no fever at all.  This came up when the host asked him if taking a temperature of all the guests at a game would be beneficial and that was his answer  

 

 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 14,488
Registered: ‎04-18-2013

No, it's not foolproof.

 

If anyone has better screening tools, please tell what they would be.

 

 

Honored Contributor
Posts: 8,736
Registered: ‎02-19-2014

@CrazyDaisy wrote:

@Porcelain wrote:

It's a good way to identify workers who are going to work sick. It happens a lot, especially in part time and hourly jobs where they really can't take time off to stay home and be sick. HR or management can stop them at the door and send them home.

 

It's useful. If someone considers a normal temp as a reason to be falsely confident, well they are probably like that all the time anyway. I would wonder what would happen if someone were tested mid hot flash, though. The reaction and recognition might depend on whether the temp monitoring person were a middle aged or older woman or not.


A bacterial infection such as a UTI can cause a fever, should a person be sent home for that?


They should be sent to a doctor and get on antibiotics before the UTI gets worse and goes systemic or shuts down their kidneys. They should be resting.

 

If anyone has a fever anywhere near COVID territory, they are too sick to be at work -- or out playing at a bar.

When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
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Posts: 9,725
Registered: ‎10-01-2013

@germanshepherdlove wrote:

Mr Urban, the man who owns a football team, was interviewed last night on one of the talking head shows and he said that taking 3 extra strength tylenol before a scan test shows no fever at all.  This came up when the host asked him if taking a temperature of all the guests at a game would be beneficial and that was his answer  

 

 


Exactly. I don't care if they take my temp or not, but I know people will find a way to alter things. This is nothing new.