Covid-19 crisis An alternative approach to temperature screening
When DORSCON Orange was activated, workplaces have to activate temperature screening of their workers. Schools have to activate screening of their students. This has caused long queues and chaos at many locations. 

The chaos can be described as "teething problems" and after a while, the problems can be sorted out. However, it will continue to require a lot of time to be spent by staff and teachers to carry out the daily temperature screening.  Worse, it may not achieve the purpose of identifying people who are infected with the virus and sending them for treatment.

The same person may have to be screened several times during a day, e.g. at the workplace and the mall. Some people may not be screened as they do not visit the places that require screening.

I suggest an alternative approach to handle the temperature screening more efficiently.

a) The task of temperature screening should be handled by a central authority, e.g. the ministry of health. 

b) The screening authority can set up 2,500 locations for people to carry out their screening once in two days. Each screened person is given a sticker that allows him to have access to any controlled place during the next two days.

c) If a person has a high temperature, he is allowed to visit a facility to have a second level check, free of charge. This check is to confirm if the person is infected (if such a test is possible) or if the temperature is indeed at a high level. If so, the person is referred to a hospital for a more thorough investigation.

d) The check at the second level facility and the treatment in the hospital will be free of charge. This will encourage people to come forward to be checked. It is for their own personal health and well being and also to stop the possible infection of other people. 

From what I know about the spreading of the coronavirus, there is a long period where a person is infected before he or she becomes seriously ill. It is important for regularly checking of temperature to catch this infected person at an early stage. 

The current strategy to quarantine a person for 14 days may be costly and not effective.  Similarly, the work of contact tracing may also be quite tedious and may not yield sufficient useful result. This is partly due to the long time that it may take for the virus to produce symptoms.

It is better to organize the checkers under a central body, rather than to have decentralized checking, to ensure quality of the screening and to reduce duplication of screening. The total effort will be less than the effort that is required to be taken under the decentralized approach.

I hope that the ministry of health will consider this approach and organize the centralized approach.

Tan Kin Lian

 

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