I see a lot of companies starting to “open up” during our running COVID-19 pandemic. Right at the top, almost invariably I find the line item that, paraphrased “All employees are temperature checked before they start work.” and then it goes on and on from there.

I think it is worthwhile to start a conversation to illuminate understanding on what temperature checks really are. They are not quickie medical tests to determine if someone is infected or not with COVID-19. They are simply a very easy diagnostic tool to isolate vectors of COVID-19 transmission. Remember, that COVID-19 can infect you without your knowledge, it can replicate in your body without your knowledge, and by the time your immune system calls for a fever, to begin work on fighting the infection, COVID-19 has already been in your system and active and spreading the entire time, back to a standard period of about two weeks.

What temperature checks that fail do, is show you that you have a vector in your midst. Save your bus fare, because when someone is showing a temperature elevation they have been sick for at least a week if not two. These people should be interviewed to see where they have been so that those who have come in contact with them can be tested and quarantined.

So, while companies want to re-open because of economic pressure, which I do fully understand, a temperature check, a good thing to do mind you, is pretty much just identifying a bomb that has been slowly going off for two weeks. It is not testing, it is not contact tracing, and it is not quarantine. You haven’t found a sick person as much as you have found a Typhoid Mary or a Typhoid Marv.

We need to test everyone. We need a vaccine. We need masks, hand-washing, and social distancing. Everything else is just a carefully monogrammed pillow invitation for COVID-19 to spread and kill more people.