In an effort to prevent infection and restore confidence in flying after the coronavirus pandemic sharply curtailed travel demand, some airports have started to take the temperature of passengers before they fly, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
With the public continuing to perceive flying as serious health risk, some airports are now taking matters into their own hands to alleviate those fears after months of failed efforts to convince the government to take on the role of checking the temperature of passengers or establishing an organzied procedure.
Such screenings are already relatively common at airports abroad.
But despite the attempts by American airports to provide a sense of visible safety measures that can help put passengers' minds at ease, some experts say temperature checks are not effective and might provide a false sense of security, because passengers could be asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus, or could be infected and not yet showing any symptoms.
The Trump administration's initial enthusiasm to find a way to enact safety measures at airports waned as the White House made a strategic decision to deemphasize the pandemic, the Journal reported.
Another factor were the complications of performing the checks and the inability to resolve vital questions, such as who would determine whether a person with a high fever had some other medical condition and thus would be allowed to fly because he or she was not contagious.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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