Heat cameras could be part of daily life
Imagine entering a supermarket or boarding a bus and having a thermal camera scan your body temperature for signs of Covid-19.
That may be the new normal as New Zealand looks to ensure carriers are detected and the virus is not spread throughout the community.
A Christchurch care home has become the first in the country to install a thermal detection camera to scan people before they enter and other trials are set to take place in shops and offices.
One company leading the way is Christchurch-based manufacturer 2040.
The technology it uses was developed by not-for-profit organisation the Cacophony Project, which aims to save New Zealand birds by recording the movements of predators.
Following the outbreak of Covid-19, the team has adapted the software to help fight the virus.
‘‘One of our engineers said we could use this to detect people with elevated body temperatures,’’ 2040 managing director Shaun Ryan said.
‘‘The default threshold is anything above 37.4 degrees Celsius, we’re labelling that as someone having a fever. It’s not a diagnostic tool, it’s a screening tool so we can say to people, ‘go get your temperature taken with a medical device’.’’
He said the threshold can be lowered or raised depending on the ‘‘risk profile’’ of the situation.
‘‘It’s a thermal camera so it measures temperature with every pixel so the basic concept was pretty simple but there was a lot of fine-tuning to make the calibration work.’’
The cameras could eventually become as commonplace as CCTV or airport security scanners, Ryan said.
‘‘I think there’s the potential for a lot of organisations to use it to scan their staff and potentially customers and I think it’s something people are going to see more and more.’’