Why not check temperature in schools?

[notevenat20]

Does anyone know why routine temperature checks are not being suggested by schools? It seems a cheap and easy step that could help. I am thinking non-contact infrared thermometers as is common in other countries.

[notevenat20]

Typo: You are right that ....

[Hazelmazel]

My kids are at two different schools. One has said they expect parents to check temperatures at home each morning, one has not mentioned temperature checks at all.
I will be checking my kids, it's an easy and quick thing to do.

[Purpledaisychain]

I work in a secondary school with 2000 kids. It would take too long for something that isn't fully reliable and would only catch the kids with symptoms. The majority of kids will be asymptomatic.

[Underhisi]

"Plus it's not 14 days isolation with a negative test."

We may not be able to test him as he will not cooperate and will need restraining to do it. He is 15 so with just 2 of us that doesn't look likely.

[Purpledaisychain]

Sorry I pressed too soon. A lot of kids will be asymptomatic and sometimes covid doesn't cause a temperature.

[Purpledaisychain]

@notevenat20

Just do it yourself if your that concerned

I don’t think it would look good if I stood outside the school testing every child who entered :)

You'd be out there testing for a long time. Plus I'd love to see the kids' reactions to a strange member of the public wanting to take their temperature. And the other parents' reactions.

[notevenat20]

I work in a secondary school with 2000 kids. It would take too long for something that isn't fully reliable and would only catch the kids with symptoms. The majority of kids will be asymptomatic.

I am not sure I understand why it would be impossible here but done routinely in other countries (eg Australia). I would have hoped that every child deserves at least 3 seconds of individual attention a day.

If it reduces the number of infectious children that enter the school by 50% it has to be worth the minimal cost doesn’t it?

[Mintjulia]

Ds can be above 37 one minute and below half an hour later. Hormones, growing pains, toothache, too much excitement can all push him up to 38.5 yet there's nothing wrong. He's done it since he was a baby.

Now he's approaching his teens and his hormones are all over the place, he has to have other symptoms or complain of feeling unwell before I worry.

[Piggywaspushed]

The DfE guidelines (yes, those famous ones!) say not to. They are pretty explicit about this.

A queue would form , bringing people into close contact.

At my school there are at least 6 different entry points to the school site.
Teachers administering it would come into close contact with lots of students.

A largeish pressure group very much oppose temperature taking , especially with the infra red ones, and would kick up a stink.

[Piggywaspushed]

Also, how would secondary students then get back home again?

[Purpledaisychain]

@notevenat20

Have you ever worked in a secondary school? It would take more than 3 secs to get each grumpy, stubborn, awkward, half-asleep teenager through the process. This would disrupt kids learning, when it has already be disrupted a lot. Many kids would have to queue to get through the school gates. Where I work, it is slap bang on the main road, with a primary school several hundred yards away on either side. It would be impossible to socially distance. It would cost a lot of money and to top it all off, we would miss over half the cases.

[Frazzled13]

I have to say, while I don't think temp checking at schools is the way to go, I don't really understand the "well not everyone will have a temp so it won't catch everyone who has it so why bother" argument? A fever is one of the main symptoms, and so what if you don't catch everyone? With something like covid, where it seems a lot of people are asymptomatic, you're never going to find everyone who has it whatever measure you use, apart from testing the whole population every few days (and even then, with false negatives some people will have it and never know).

The lack of reliability and the time it takes are definitely valid reasons not to do it.

[Purpledaisychain]

It could actually be down to only 40% of cases caught. If up to 47% are asymptomatic, and 12% have symptoms but no temperature. And a lot of studying time wasted, a lack of social distancing etc etc and as another person said, some kids naturally run at a higher temperature than others.

[notevenat20]

The DfE guidelines (yes, those famous ones!) say not to.

Ah the DfE :) Can you give a link?

Some of the answers here seemed to suggest there are some schools doing the tests, unless I misinterpreted them.

[Mintjulia]

Plus any dc who has played half an hour football before school or run to school will show a higher temperature for a few minutes.

What would you do, put the warm ones in a room and test them again 15 minutes later? It's unworkable.

[notevenat20]

some kids naturally run at a higher temperature than others.

Don’t those kids have to stay at home in any case under current rules?

[Purpledaisychain]

@Frazzled13

Because, especially in larger schools, it would cause huge queues and a lack of social distancing, therefore creating more cases. Plus the amount of studying time we would lose. The school I work at, it would probably take up half the morning.

[latticechaos]

@notevenat20

Just do it yourself if your that concerned

I don’t think it would look good if I stood outside the school testing every child who entered :)

this vision made me laugh!

[itsgettingweird]

@Danglingmod

1. They are notoriously unreliable compared to the ones which go in your ear/mouth/other orifice.

1. It would take most of the morning in your average secondary school.

I believed this for many years and brought an in ear one.

Then I read somewhere a year ago that in ear ones are only accurate if done properly and the forehead ones are the most accurate.

So confused!

Now I use both to check against each other!

[Piggywaspushed]

Some schools are : but I bet not as many as were doing it in summer term when numbers were smaller.

It is definitely in there *OP8. No offence, but I am not wading through the 23000 word guidance -again- to find it to provide a link.

[solidaritea]

DfE say its not reliable. Which I think is their way of saying it's not worth the time it would take. We did before the summer but not now. I guess they have a point, but I would have preferred if it were an individual school decision. We have the equipment already, and it slows down entry to school far, far less than getting every child to wash their hands for 20 seconds. I know it's crude, but it could give an indication. We only sent home one child in 10 weeks.

[Purpledaisychain]

@notevenat20

No because that is their normal temperature. If that goes up, then they have a fever.

[itsgettingweird]

@Underhisi

There is no way I would be putting ds through 14 days indoors on the basis of what an infra red thermometer says.

What will you do?

I'm assuming schools can refuse to have a child for 10 days if they have a temperature as that's isolation period?

So will you just keep him home but go out and about for walks etc instead?

[Piggywaspushed]

Is that a primary solid? So the parent was still there?

At secondary it would add so many layers of bureaucracy to get the child picked up. And we couldn't send a child home alone who we suspected had symptoms!

[atomicnotsoblonde]

Infra red are simply not designed for multiple continuous use. The readings will be all over the place, assuming they are being properly calibrated in the first place. It's one of those ideas that sounds great but has no legitimate clinical value in this circumstance.