According to the Wall Street Journal, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is considering checking temperatures at about a dozen different airports to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Although several airlines have already announced that they will be performing their own temperature checks on passengers, this is the first effort by the United States government to apply the practice across an entire airport.
According to the newspaper, the checks will kick off as early as next week and will be performed with tripods or hand-held thermal scanners. Those registering a temperature of 100.4 or higher will be flagged.
The paper also notes that the concept has already been tested at Washington Dulles International Airport back in April.
The measure shouldn't come as a surprise: as international travel resumes and airlines apply extra sanitary practices when cleaning carriers, attention has now turned to the airports themselves as companies seek different ways to maintain social distancing guidelines and hygienic procedures in place while embracing a semblance of normalcy. In Las Vegas, for example, travelers will find the very first face mask vending machine in an American airport.
Of course, temperature checks come along with a set of potential drawbacks as well: critics cite TSA agents' greater risk for contamination given their potential exposure to a larger amount of people and the unreliability of temperatures as indicators of infection when dealing with folks who are asymptomatic.
As of now, the new measure is under review by the White House. Either way, flyers should prepare themselves for novel kinds of experiences while traveling, following norms of behavior that will be the new normal for quite some time.
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