U.S. Senate Committee, on Friday, has required the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to install temperature screenings at airport checkpoints to improve the safety of passengers in air travel while the COVID-19 pandemic is still around.
This tech is unified and non-invasive, and systems like these have by now proven effective for finding disease and modifying COVID-19’s spread in other countries. Airport temperature checks would be directed using advanced, contactless, thermal-camera technology able to automatically screen numbers of passengers passing through.
Tori Emerson Barnes, U.S. Travel Association Executive, mentioned, “While safeguarding health must remain to be the priority, travel should likely start to be continued but as I said with solid protocols in place. This temperature check pilot program is a wise step to explore the framework that will allow travel to more largely reopen.”
Implementing the thermal scanners will also stand to help and prepare the U.S. for possible public health risks in the future. Because fever is a common indicator of many infectious diseases, as it is in the case of the coronavirus. When it comes to contagious diseases such as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003 or the H1N1 (influenza A) pandemic in 2009, technological tools similar to these have been used to identify and contain the spread it.
In fact, with eight of the top ten global aviation markets, the U.S. and Germany being the only holdouts for instance and according to International Air Transport Association (IATA) data, over 140 countries and territories around the world have already applied the temperature screening protocols at airports. This gives the Senna Committee the positive approval it needs.
If the legislation is passed, it could play a major role in rebuilding the public’s trust in the aviation system while the pandemic persists.
