‘Codes to cheat thermal scanners’— a few passengers who returned from foreign countries were taking a leaf out of this by taking paracetamol to suppress fever so that their body temperature could not be detected during thermal screening at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA), Shamshabad.
Symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, cough, cold, respiratory illness. However, only body temperature is detected using thermal scanners at airports across the world. If anyone is detected with abnormal body temperature, they will be taken to isolation centres at State-run hospitals and their samples will be collected for tests.
When contacted sources in the police department and airport have confirmed that a few air passengers took the medicines so as to normalise the temperature consequently avoiding the detection of temperature by thermal readers.
However, passengers with other symptoms like cold, cough and dizziness cannot run away from the eyes of health officials at the airport.
“People should realise that we are taking measures for the safety of their families and society. Hiding the symptoms of COVID-19 is homicide,” a senior police officer told The Hindu .
High-level meeting
He said that same issue was discussed during an high-level emergency meeting with Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Thursday. When asked about the effect of paracetamol and other pain killers, senior consultant physician at KIMS Dr. K. Shivaraju said that the medicines act effectively and bring down body temperature for at least four hours.
“If a person is having 101-degree Celsius body temperature, it can come down to normal and clear the thermal screening. However, people with high running temperatures cannot bring it to normal,” he said.
People should realise that we are taking measures for the safety of their families and society
A senior police officer
