3 Things You Need to Know About Those Temperature Guns

How useful are they?

You’ve seen them. The guy outside your grocery store wields one as might a bouncer at a trendy nightclub — deciding if you are cool enough to get in.

But here are the facts . . .

• A case study of 5,700 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in New York City found that only about 30 percent of patients had a fever.
• The problem is that failing a temperature check doesn’t mean you’ll automatically get a referral for a test. Getting a test can still be hard.
• Temperature checks stand to provide a false sense of comfort.

We don’t know for sure how well temperature checks work. We’re in the middle of an experiment here. Like with so much else in this pandemic, from mask-wearing to positive antibody tests, we have to be careful not to over-interpret them as being useful, or a reason to ease up on measures like social distancing. In other words, don’t take temperature checks as a reason to head to your local saloon for kicks.

Conversely, if your local supermarket doesn’t have temperature checks, that’s not a reason to freak out.

Much like masks, temperature checks can be a useful tool to cut down on risk, a little bit. But they cannot be the only tool.

sources: Health.com, Business Insider, Slate, CBS

and for my satirical take on face masks . . .