this might not work too well

Training--no more so than in this situation--is always more important than the tools employed.

Dunno. If that is an infra-red thermometer, the examiner might be trying to distinguish between a localised infection (in the hand or wrist) and a whole body infection. I'd point it at the forehead or into the mouth or ear for the latter, but then again I've not been trained to use a mass-screening thermometer.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Neither has anyone else in this newsgroup I expect.

--

Rick

As usual, Larkin, the mechanic, is out to lunch.

That's hilarious, another NPR journalist dweeb who thinks that a cheap IR imager has telescopic accuracy. That pic is even funnier than mine. Wanna cheat? Hold a water bottle your hand a minute before you get scanned. Or take an Advil.

Laser pointers are small and cheap. IR thermometers with 2 degree FOV are neither. The thing he is using probably has a 20 or 30 degree FOV, so he's mainly measuring the background temp of the airport.

Those things have tons of pointer parallax, too. The center of the big fuzzy sensor patch is nowhere near the red dot.

The medical grade IR thermometers are generally pointed into the ear canal, which is an excellent black body thingie.

A thermal imager is a better idea, but they cost kilobucks. Even they are tricky, because different parts of different people vary a lot in temperature.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

On Wed, 8 Oct 2014 18:16:54 -0700 (PDT), snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com Gave us:

It is not worth a shit at that distance. And skin temp varies from person to person, even at an optimal measurement location (the wrist or ear) It is far better used at its design optimum focal distance, typical 25 centimeter distance for those fresnel based devices.

However, one would think that the damned airports could afford the now cheap thermal imager type devices, which are calibrated far better, and would be a far better, more exacting tool for the purpose. Providing far more detail and info regarding a person with a fever.

But an idiot f*ck like you would not know a damned thing about the real world.

Bloggs, the stupid bastard, doesn't deserve a lunch outing.

You just post retarded cracks at folks. Like the ding bat hypogonadic f*ck you are.

Fuck off, BloggTard. Grow the f*ck up. Grow a pair while you are at it.

This quote, from Blobbsy's link, is beyond hilarious:

explain how NPR correspondent Jason Beaubien registered a cool 91 degrees Fahrenheit in Sierra Leone in August. This temperature indicates extreme hypothermia, but was of little concern to the airport workers, who were looking for dangerously high temperatures, not low ones.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

On Wed, 08 Oct 2014 19:03:38 -0700, John Larkin Gave us:

Exactly! Absolutely the wrong "instrument" (not)(not an instrument) at the wrong distance.

had to be like Bloggs and SNIP...

...just to see how it feels. Although there was nothing I was responding to in there.

Summary:

He is too stupid to come anywhere close to being able to comprehend a damned thing you said about IR data gathering or measurement circumstance/set-up consistency.

With the shown device, it *COULD* be done, but would be a lot more difficult and invasive than that. (freshly raised bare armpit) And even that would require an extrapolation as skin temp does not match blood/body temp. In very few, if any places, in fact.

Even the doc's ear tool has a standard offset incorporated into it. Several degrees, in fact. Quite reliable.(both my statement and the offset inside the ear)

Hehehehehe!

On Wed, 08 Oct 2014 20:24:05 -0700, John Larkin Gave us:

Hahaha! How funny!

Just so you know... and you likely already do... at 98.6 true body temp, typical skin temp is about 91 degrees.

The skin is a very nebulous place to gain accurate numbers from. Consistency even on the same patient can vary right there within the same measurement session.

Of course, these are Fahrenheit figures.

ng to distinguish between a localised infection (in the hand or wrist) and a whole body infection. I'd point it at the forehead or into the mouth or e ar for the latter, but then again I've not been trained to use a mass-scree ning thermometer.

Can you identify "the thing he is using"? If you can't, your speculation is a trifle more hilarious than those of the npr journalist, who at least div ides up the screening tools being used into a couple of separate categories .

And you know this because you can recognise the hand-held gadget in the pho tograph as exactly identical to the one you tested way back when? Then give us the manufacturer and part number!

If the person being screened is cooperative enough to let it happen, and if the person doing the screening has time to get the IR thermometer close to the ear canal, and lined up with it. Neither is a given.

But, as the npr journalist points out, they are good enough to pick out 70% of the febrile cases - which is a lot better than nothing - and they are fa st.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

I have warm hands. My wife has cool hands. Hand temp also depends on whet you have been doing with your hands in the last few minutes: in your pocket, wrapped around a luggage handle, open hand, closed fist.

Hand temp is pretty much useless as a fever indicator.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

On Wed, 08 Oct 2014 21:05:53 -0700, DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno Gave us:

That should read "psuedo-calibrated".

Despite this, infra-red imaging cameras have been used for quick and dirty fever detection from skin temperature. They only get 70% of the fever cases , and generate a similar level of false positives, but are minimally distur bing for the passengers trooping past them - more so for the passengers who get hauled off for more careful inspection.

Each screening authority works out for itself what it can afford.

It's not great, but since infra-red imaging cameras do seem to work well en ough to justify the cost of deploying them, there's an appreciable gap betw een "pretty much useless" and "totally useless".

And pontificating about the performance of a scanner which you can't actual ly identify isn't exactly the worlds most useful activity.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

long sleeves/short sleeves.

--
umop apisdn

On a sunny day (Wed, 08 Oct 2014 12:33:22 -0700) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

None of that by president 0ebolabama announced 'screening' works.

The only way to deal with this is stay out of that area in Affrica, and nuke it, glassify it. A few hundfed of them versus millions of us.

I did mention that in sci.physics long time ago, and predicted the current outbreak. Not only are doctors clueless to virusses it seems, the whole industry is stearing towards an other mass-vaccination just to sell.

Evil empires get destroyed by the wrath of God if you will [1], like the Pest in medivial Europe.. Egypyt... History repeats itself over and over again. Were the dinos wiped out by a virus?

[1] The stupidity of men. And that is what you get when you politically put cluessles women in postions where real scientist should be.

We bring one after the the other poor Affrican here (they come in droves crossing by Spain and Italy), and it only takes one to kill millions of us. We should simply sink all their boats and let them know about it. Not that the Mediterranian will not be a polluted virus pool then. But OK, anybody here got ebola yet? :-)

My dear god. What a total imbecile. There really are a few people in the world who should not be allowed to express their opinions and certainly not vote on them.

If dropping a nuke on Africa would solve the Ebola problem, why isn't your country considering it... I am interested in your twisted thoughts on that.

Then to end your misogynistic post with a smiley face...

--

Rick

Right. In the pic I posted, the agent was measuring the passenger's wrist. Who knows where that wrist has been?

Using spot IR sensors is stupid theatre, like making people take their shoes off. It's the "at least we're doing something" mentality, dramatic but useless.

Now the US is going to do it, too. For political reasons.

The "70% accurate" number is crazy. Even 5% false positives would bring US air transport to a halt.

In real-world situations, temperature measurement is surprisingly difficult.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Bad, nasty rant.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

Mouth is not a good idea, because of drinking hot or cold liquids.

Mikek

PS. Is that a Harbor Freight thermometer? :-)