Welcoming employees back to work
Now that many communities are beginning to allow companies to bring their workers back to the office, a post-Covid question pops up. How to keep employees infected with the virus out of your office? Until there’s widespread access to a vaccine, and until enough people have been vaccinated, you can’t depend on immunity.
Instead, your company has to provide as much isolation between your healthy employees and people (including other employees) who might be infected. Unfortunately, there is no magical way to do this.
But there are things you can do, one of which is self-screening for Covid-19, in which you ask your employees to report any signs of illness. To be effective, you will need to offer paid time off if an employee reports what could be a Covid-19 infection, and needs to take time off in quarantine. The problem is that not everyone will recognize the symptoms of Covid-19, and even if they do, they may not think they’re actually sick.
The App Approach
The DrOwl check-in screen
One way to take at least some of the guesswork out of self-screening is to use an app designed for that purpose, such as the DrOwl screening and monitoring tool. The app, which is available for iOS and Android devices, comes with a set of standard questions asking about symptoms and potential exposure. An organization that uses the DrOwl app can edit the questions or add new questions that are relevant to a specific area. For example, a company in an area with a nearby beach might ask questions about frequenting the boardwalk or amusement area.
When an employee, customer or vendor goes to the DrOwl check-in screen, the questions are presented in the app. There’s also a web-based version. The responses are sent to a database available to administrators that reports the answers, allowing companies to decide whether to admit the person to the business.
Direct Screening
The Passive Security Scan Elevated Body Temperature Station
The problem with self-screening is that it’s not always reliable. People may not realize that they’ve been near a crowd, or that they have symptoms, or that a specific symptom might indicate Covid-19. They may also not tell the truth if they want to go to a specific business. One way to dig a little deeper is to check the body temperature of each person that enters a facility.
Tools for remote temperature checking are easy to come by. Infrared temperature scanners are available from a variety of sources including Amazon for under fifty dollars. But reading the temperature of each employee as they come to work, or of each customer or vendor as they enter a facility is time-consuming and labor-intensive.
However, there’s another, more efficient option. Passive Security Scan has an elevated body temperature station that reads the temperature of each person as they walk past the device. The device is mounted on a pedestal and uses facial recognition to determine who is walking past it. It then focuses a temperature sensor on the corner of the eye, where it can read body temperature instantly.
The same device is also available as part of a walk-through metal detector, such as those you’d find at an airport if we’re ever allowed to travel again.
While an elevated body temperature is not a definitive means of detecting Covid-19 because asymptomatic people generally don’t have an elevated temperature, it is one way to flag a potential case that doesn’t depend on someone reporting their own symptoms, which can have its own set of problems.
While screening is an important means of helping your business stay safe, it can’t be the only means. Social distancing is also critical, as are other preventatives including hand washing and mask wearing.
