Fever scanners used to check temperatures to fight covid can be wildly inaccurate, researchers find

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Fri, 2021-03-05 09:43 — mike kraft

Those fever scanners that everyone is using to fight covid can be wildly inaccurate, researchers find A flood of thermal scanners hit the market last year. But researchers say many of the devices use software that can make a feverish person appear perfectly well. Drew Harwell Washington Post

Temperature-scanning devices that check for fevers in schools, workplaces and public venues across the United States distort the results in a way that could overlook the telltale sign of a coronavirus infection, according to new research that casts doubt on the systems’ effectiveness in helping people resume normal life.

The thermal cameras and “temperature tablet” kiosks have been heralded as a critical first line of defense against new pandemic outbreaks. But in a new study of the scanners by the surveillance research organization IPVM, researchers warn that the tools are dangerously ineffective, raising the risk that infected people could be waved through medical screening checkpoints and go on to spread the virus unchecked.

On Thursday night, shortly after The Washington Post discussed the research findings with the Food and Drug Administration, the agency issued a public alert warning that improper use of the devices could lead to inaccurate measurements and “present potentially serious public health risks.”

The agency also announced that it was sending official “warning letters” to one of the discussed companies, as well as three others, for selling “unapproved, uncleared, and unauthorized thermal imaging systems.”

In the letter to the company, Certify Global, FDA officials said use of the devices carried the risk of incorrect detection, particularly if used to scan multiple people simultaneously, and that a person with an undetected fever may “be less likely to adhere to infection prevention and control guidelines.” ...

The utility of these devices as fever screeners is now highly questionable, and arguably a risk to public health, because they actively report fevers as normal,” said Conor Healy, the lead researcher of the study set for publication in the Journal of Biomedical Optics.

Representatives of the tested companies Certify, Dahua, Meridian and ZKTeco disputed the findings, saying their systems don’t manipulate temperature readings but in some cases use software techniques to “self-calibrate” to their environment. ...

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