Accurate Fever Scanning with Infrared Forehead Thermometers: Issues, Solutions and How to Calibrate

 FlukeCal Publishes Helpful Article Online

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a lot of interest in measuring human body temperature. I’m sure you’ve seen articles or you had your own temperature measured as you entered a public place like a store or medical building. 

Most of the interest in measuring human body temperature is in the area of non-contact or infrared (IR) temperature measurement. Infrared measurements are ideal for this fever screening because making the measurement only takes a few milliseconds, and you don’t have to touch the person or object you are measuring, which helps prevent further spread of CoronaVirus. 

Article overview 

 We know a lot about radiation thermometry here at Fluke Calibration. We manufacture some of the best IR calibration standards in the world and our experts are recognized in the metrology community. For example, Frank Liebmann is a recognized expert in the field, and he has contributed many technical articles and scientific papers on this subject.

 Frank has trained hundreds from around the world on proper methods for performing IR temperature measurements and calibrations. Thanks to Frank and other Fluke IR experts, we can provide answers for the challenging questions you may have.

 In this post I’m going to answer some basic questions about IR thermometers for human fever screening, such as how they measure, some of the challenges with using them for human body temperature measurement, and how to check the accuracy to know that an instrument is living up to its claimed specifications. 

 We’re also working on more technical content which will be published at a later date. If you are interested in being informed about that, please sign up for our email list. 

 Read The whole article online at: https://us.flukecal.com/blog/accurate-fever-scanning-infrared-forehead-thermometers-issues-solutions-and-how-calibrate?lcid=2a940465-4603-eb11-a813-000d3a593b1e&utm_campaign=FCAL_GL_EN_TCAL_EML_BLOG_2020_INFARED-FOREHEAD_1_B&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua

Scott Gottlieb Lets Trump off Woodward's Hook

Former FDA Leader Says Trump Was Right

 Trump did the best with the information he had at the time.

Far-UVC light (222 nm) and human coronaviruses

In a June 24th article in Nature Scientific Reports by 

Manuela Buonanno, 

David Welch, 

Igor Shuryak & 

David J. Brenner

“Far-UVC light (222 nm) efficiently and safely inactivates airborne human coronaviruses”

...we have shown that very low doses of far-UVC light efficiently kill airborne human coronaviruses carried by aerosols. A dose as low as 1.2 to 1.7 mJ/cm2 of 222-nm light inactivates 99.9% of the airborne human coronavirus tested from both genera beta and alpha, respectively. As all human coronaviruses have similar genomic size, a key determinant of radiation sensitivity27, it is likely that far-UVC light will show comparable inactivation efficiency against other human coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2.

Together with previous safety studies12,13,14,15,16,17,18 and our earlier studies with aerosolized influenza A (H1N1)23, these results suggest the utility of continuous low-dose-rate far-UVC light in occupied indoor public locations such as hospitals, transportation vehicles, restaurants, airports and schools, potentially representing a safe and inexpensive tool to reduce the spread of airborne-mediated viruses. While staying within the current regulatory dose limits, low-dose-rate far-UVC exposure can potentially safely provide a major reduction in the ambient level of airborne coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2.

Read the full article online at:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2

Gov. Wolf’s actions are a "stunning act of petty revenge..."

Claims Rep. Frank Ryan's Op-Ed: "Gov. Wolf should not inflict harm on those he represents"

"He has repeatedly ignored efforts by the legislature to address the pain of the millions of Pennsylvanians for whom the economic toll of his actions on them and their families were equally as damaging to their health as are the ravages of COVID-19" 

 "Local businesses and non-profits throughout Lebanon County have struggled to survive throughout Gov. Wolf’s shutdown – and some sadly won’t make it, closing their doors for good. What began as a two-week effort to “flatten the curve” has morphed into a four-month economic catastrophe that has no clear end in sight." 

 "The curve has been flat in Pennsylvania since April. The hospital system has not come even close to being overwhelmed, and yet Gov. Wolf persists in forcing businesses to stay closed that could be operating safely in accordance with CDC guidelines." 

 "Now, Gov. Wolf is seeking to settle political scores. But he’s doing so illegally, as state law specifies how CARES Act funding must be distributed. While Wolf may be angry at Lebanon County for not following his arbitrary rules, he must still abide by the law and cannot withhold funds from our citizens no matter how angry he is that he was not obeyed".

 Read the whole story online at: https://www.thecentersquare.com/pennsylvania/op-ed-gov-wolf-should-not-inflict-harm-on-those-he-represents/article_2d3580c8-c82c-11ea-8e4c-475610d7dbf0.html#tncms-source=infinity-scroll-summary-sticky-siderail-latest

CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance

"COVID-19 is an unprecedented challenge. The CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance is an unprecedented partnership of the world’s leading plasma companies, spanning plasma collection, development, production, and distribution. 

"Rather than pursue our individual research, we are putting public and patient health first by working together. Our goals are to accelerate the development of a potential treatment, improve our chances of success, and increase supply of the potential treatment. 

 "In addition to those announced at its inception—Biotest, BPL, CSL Behring, LFB, Octapharma, and Takeda—the Alliance welcomes new industry members ADMA Biologics, BioPharma Plasma, GC Pharma, and Sanquin. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is providing advisory support. 

"Microsoft is providing technology including the Alliance website and the Plasma Bot for donor recruitment."

What Is CoVIg-19? 

Plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 — known as “convalescent plasma” — could be a key part of the fight against the new coronavirus. Once the plasma is donated, it can take one of two paths: be directly transfused into patients, or used to make a potential medicine for COVID-19. 

Both of these approaches are important and some hospitals are already using direct transfusion to treat severe COVID-19 patients. The CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance is developing a hyperimmune globulin (H-Ig) called CoVIg-19. This potential medicine requires plasma donated by people who have fully recovered from COVID-19, since their plasma contains antibodies against the virus.

If interested in helping visit: https://www.donatingplasma.org and/or https://www.covig-19plasmaalliance.org/en-us#recruitment

New Online Course - Elevated Skin Temperature Screening

The Infrared Training Center is now offering an online Elevated Skin Temperature (EST) screening course for anyone using thermal imaging for this application. 

EST screening utilizes thermal imaging to measure the surface temperature of a person’s inner eye corner to detect signs of a fever. 

While infrared cameras cannot confirm the presence of a fever or virus, they are utilized to help prevent the spread of communicable conditions by identifying individuals who may have a high skin temperature.

These readings can then be used to initiate secondary screening, if needed, to verify whether the subject has a fever.
For more details and to register, visit: https://irtraining.asentialms.com/catalog/?type=course&sc=EST

The Infrared Training Center's (ITC) training will increase your credibility, enhance your career, and build your thermal imaging business. ITC offers IR training, certification, and recertification in all aspects of thermography. It is a unit of FLIR Systems.

AMETEK Land Releases Technology to Help Contain Threat of COVID-19

AMETEK Land's fever screening thermal imaging system designed for human body temperature measurement 

The vIRalert 2 fixed thermal imaging system provides a remote surface measurement of body temperature, automatically alerting the operator to elevated temperatures.

This proven technology calibrates the thermal image with a blackbody calibration source in real-time to provide a system "accuracy*" of better than 0.5 °C and can therefore detect even small temperature changes induced by a fever.

 As a result, the vIRalert 2 system provides reliable skin temperature measurement for screening at point-of-entry into key facilities, like offices, factories, warehouses, schools, government buildings and any other places where infectious diseases can easily spread.

 David Primhak, Director of Development and Product Management at AMETEK Land, explains: “In a world where global travel means infections can pass through populations fast, the ability to screen people for fever is a key tool in reducing the risk of disease spread. vIRalert 2 can detect fever at point-of-entry quickly and remotely, in compliance with social distancing requirements, preventing the risk of infection being transmitted between the operator and members of the public. This is cutting edge technology that could make a huge difference in protecting the population both now and in the future.”

He adds: "Many thermal imagers are unable to achieve the sensitivity required to detect a fever and therefore give false positive readings and low detection percentages – this means a higher chance of spreading the infection throughout the monitored area. vIRalert 2 provides traceable readings, giving mission critical operations the confidence to operate normally and safely."

AMETEK Land’s vIRalert 2 system provides on-screen and audible alerts when a pedestrian with an elevated temperature is detected, allowing simple decision making on whether a person should be further vetted for admission without slowing pedestrian flow.

Quick and easy to install, vIRalert 2 is simple to operate and works straight out of the box. It also has an automatic alert function, which reduces the potential for human error.

______________
* Accuracy is a term used by many instrument makers to imply the preciseness of their measurement devices. It is a qualitative term much like "beautiful" and "rugged"and is technically equivalent to saying "good". The technically correct, quantitative term is "Measurement Uncertainty" that indicates the measurement capability or precision, usually under calibration conditions, in numbers along with a confidence values. Land Instrument's and its predecessor, Land Pyrometers, Ltd. used to provide such detail with all their measurement devices.

Climate risks & COVID-19 pandemic

Nature Climate Change May 15, 2020:

https://www.nature.com/nclimate

“The COVID-19 pandemic will be an unprecedented test of governments’ ability to manage compound risks, as climate hazards disrupt outbreak response around the world. 

“Immediate steps can be taken to minimize climate-attributable loss of life, but climate adaptation also needs a long-term strategy for pandemic preparedness.“

Authors

Phillips, C.A., Caldas, A., Cleetus, R. et al. “Compound climate risks in the COVID-19 pandemic”. Nat. Clim. Chang. (2020).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0804-2

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COVID Senior Deaths in US ~80% Of Total

COVID-19 Deaths Scary to This Senior

As a retiree, and a Senior, I am concerned that our leaders and media are either inept or deliberately trying to hide the true magnitude of the disaster that COVID-19 is taking on the Senior demographic. Here’s a few stats that I could find without too much digging, thanks to the links on the worldometers.info website.

From these data it is not a very far reach to conclude that Senior deaths make up about 80% or more of the total number of deaths reported to date. Am I wrong, or has this fact been subtlety hidden from the populous?

Both items are very scary, indeed! I suspect that most people including Seniors have a feeling that the number is about 50%, not the really dramatic and scary value of 80%! That’s more than 2/3rds of total deaths!!

Why, in heavens name, would State enumerators not analyze the data by age when there are analyses by all sorts of things like race, county and more? There is no uniformity to reporting and some states do a far more competent job than others.

Note please, that the percentages shown below are of the total number reported COVID-19 attributed deaths for each reporting unit. In some cases there was no breakout of deaths for people over 65 years age and, the number I used is half the reported number for between 60 and 69. That’s probably conservative since it is most likely that there are more deaths above 65 than below.

Percentage of  Deaths for Citizens 65 and Older Due to COVID-19 Infection By Sampled U.S.A. Areas:

New York: 74%

New Jersey: 80%

Connecticut: NR*

Massachusetts: 90%

Michigan: 88%

District of Columbia: 33% **

Louisiana: NR***
Pennsylvania: NR*

Rhode Island: 86%

Illinois: 68%

Maryland: 78%

Florida: 85%

Georgia: NR

Indiana: 83%

Average of reported and credible sample data: 81%
___________________

• *Not Reported
• ** Not Reported, not analyzed rest home data available, clearly under reported
• ***Not Reported, some rest home data mentioned, no other

____________________

What does this imply?

Seems to me there are several obvious things that these statistics strongly imply:

1. The “News” Media does not have a clue, they seem to focus on the obvious and do not go any further like asking some thoughtful questions of those in charge about the meaning of lop-sided demographics of deaths in terms of treatments options, options in opening the economy and development of plans to better protect the vulnerable to make opening easier and sooner.

2. From the onset of the crisis there have been generic warnings about those who are vulnerable, but little beyond, again, vague generalities of washing hands and avoiding contact, There has nothing promoted about efforts to seriously impress the gravity of the situation on Seniors over 65!

3. Despite massive government efforts to develop antivirals and vaccines, there has been no mention, at least I haven’t heard any, about efforts to improve the immune systems of the most vulnerable people in the country, the ones who make up more than 80% of deaths, thus far. Are there medicinals, vitamins or some new pharmaceutical approach that could help? (My personal observation is that there are hardly any Vitamin C tablets available at CVS, Costco or other stores and even very slow delivery from Amazon online. Some people obviously believe in Vitamin C! Thanks to Dr Linus Pauling, a double Nobel Prize awardee, I am a fan; his arguments in his book, “Vitamin C and The Common Cold”, were very convincing to me. )

4. Seems to me that Seniors including those on Medicare should be receiving more urgent warnings and support to keep away from outside contacts and made aware of how truly serious the hazard is to them.

PostNote:

In a corrected report, March 18th, on morbidity and mortality, the CDC actually reported that 80% of COVID-19 deaths were among the 65 and older age group, yet I never heard any report in the media about it and it is buried in Internet search results. See: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6912e2-H.pdf

Looks like the very high percentage of deaths from COVID-19 for those older than 65 holds true for Sweden, too.  According to the data online at https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107913/number-of-coronavirus-deaths-in-sweden-by-age-groups/, as of May 20, the percentage is 91.7%.

In April, Metro news in the U.K. estimated that about 82.3% of COVID-19 deaths was among those over age 65. See https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/03/coronavirus-deaths-age-uk-12506448/.