CAMBRIDGE -- Body temperature cameras that can detect whether someone has a fever are being installed in some businesses and other buildings across Waterloo Region.
The cameras are currently being used on staff members at Cambridge Memorial Hospital, and officials there say it’s an effort to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
All staff must pass by a thermal camera that screens their body temperature.
Emily Quantz works at the hospital and says the temperature scan is an added precaution to check for a fever, which public health officials say is one of the many COVID-19 symptoms.
She notes that there’s a two-step process if the cameras show a temperature of concern.
“If they do have a temperature above 37.5 degrees Celsius through the camera, then we will just validate with the oral temperature, so if they are positive, then we will send them home,” she says.
CMH officials say at this point, the screening measures the hospital has in place have been working for them.
The company installing the cameras, Control Access, says they’ve installed about 40 of them so far in places that include manufacturers and meat processing plants.
Canada’s top doctor recently issued words of caution about temperature checks.
During a news conference, Dr. Theresa Tam said temperature checks alone will not weed out COVID-19 cases.
She said it becomes clear that temperature taking is “not effective at all” to identify people who have the virus, as we learn more about it.
With reporting by Stephanie Villella
