Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) has announced the introduction of voluntary temperature screening measures for passengers arriving at the airport, over three months after the World Health Organisation labelled COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
The airport has reportedly set up thermal scanners in the Tom Bradley International Terminal for both arriving and departing passengers to utilise on a voluntary basis.
While passengers will be ‘advised not to travel’ if they display a temperature of over 38 degrees, no one will be prevented from travelling on the basis of their temperature screening result.
However, arriving passengers who display a temperature of 38 degrees celsius or above will be referred to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Signage has been placed throughout the terminal to alert passengers to walk through the thermal screening camera’s ‘field of vision’, which should be able to register the body temperature of all passing passengers,
Then, should the machine detect that a passenger has an elevated body temperature, they will be approached by a medical professional with a handheld, non-contact thermometer for secondary reading.
Again, it is the understanding of World of Aviation that no passengers will be refused from a flight based on their results of the screening, however incoming passengers may be referred to the CDC for further testing.
At a press conference held within the terminal earlier this week, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said, “Our ability to spot folks exhibiting COVID symptoms, as we saw at the beginning of this pandemic, is so critical to stopping its spread and ensuring that people can travel safely.”
“A world-class airport isn’t defined just by our historic investments in a reimagined LAX and an improved travelling experience – it’s also about world-class safety,” he said, in a separate statement.
“This project reflects the best of this city’s innovative spirit, and it will help keep travellers healthy and set a new industry standard.”
The airport is launching the program in partnership with the Carlyle Airport Group through Schneider Electric, with trials to run across three different types of screening cameras in order to determine which is most accurate in identifying passengers who are potentially unwell.
Evaluation of the trials will fall to a combination of the TSA, airlines, CDC, and LA County Department of Public Health.
With all this said, health professionals warn that temperature screenings are by no means the only or best way to detect possible cases of COVID-19, as many people can spread the virus while exhibiting no symptoms at all.
Screening measures should be used in conjunction with frequent sanitisation, social distancing and encouraging those who feel unwell to remain at home.
The US currently has 2.4 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, with California accounting for around 178,000 of these. Cases in the US have consistently grown at around 30,000 new cases per day since early April.
