[CardinalSagehen]

So little of the spread of this disease is from people symptomatic enough to have a fever. Thermometers are mostly security theater IMHO.

Totally agree. Some people have active COVID-19 and never spike a fever. Further,lots of the thermometers you buy on Amazon are wildly inaccurate. Like most "security theatre", it will catch a few cases. But it is far from a "good" solution.

Fair enough, I defer to the experts. I know it’s not a panacea and acknowledged the prevalence of asymptomatic spread. I don’t know how anyone can be certain that super-spreading or the worst/highest viral loads aren’t spread by symptomatic people, with how little we know, but that’s beside the point.  

Nothing is a good solution on its own, except frequent and immediate test results. Until we have that, I’m for masks, self-reporting, outdoor waiting rooms, temp-taking and all forms of security theater, superimposed. To me, temp-taking (even with somewhat inaccurate devices) seems to meet the threshold of things we should be doing in places like gyms and salons.  Perhaps we will have to buy $200 thermometers rather than $40 ones - it would still be worth it.  

Defense in depth.  

Anything that might reduce the virality factor by a smidge can save lives and jobs. That is my view but I admit it’s a bit of a firehose approach.

[CardinalSagehen]

So little of the spread of this disease is from people symptomatic enough to have a fever. Thermometers are mostly security theater IMHO.

Totally agree. Some people have active COVID-19 and never spike a fever. Further,lots of the thermometers you buy on Amazon are wildly inaccurate. Like most "security theatre", it will catch a few cases. But it is far from a "good" solution.

Fair enough, I defer to the experts. I know it’s not a panacea and acknowledged the prevalence of asymptomatic spread. I don’t know how anyone can be certain that super-spreading or the worst/highest viral loads aren’t spread by symptomatic people, with how little we know, but that’s beside the point.  

Nothing is a good solution on its own, except frequent and immediate test results. Until we have that, I’m for masks, self-reporting, outdoor waiting rooms, temp-taking and all forms of security theater, superimposed. To me, temp-taking (even with somewhat inaccurate devices) seems to meet the threshold of things we should be doing in places like gyms and salons.  Perhaps we will have to buy $200 thermometers rather than $40 ones - it would still be worth it.  

Defense in depth.  

Anything that might reduce the virality factor by a smidge can save lives and jobs. That is my view but I admit it’s a bit of a firehose approach.