Coronavirus: Disease Control

(asked on 16th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the role that temperature screening cameras in public places could play in helping the safe lifting of the covid-19 lockdown.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 25th June 2020

Thermal screening was considered by expert committees including the Department’s, New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group. The findings were that thermal screening would be of limited benefit and that it was not the best use of public health resource. From that work, we would conclude that temperature screening cameras in public places are unlikely to be an effective means of protecting places as many cases are asymptomatic and of the symptomatic cases not all will experience fever as a symptom, and therefore would not be identified through temperature checks.

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