There's No Point to Temperature Checks for Cruising - They are Useless

[sanger727]

1 hour ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

Some people fear they might lose their job or promotion opportunities for taking a sick day or are in employment that does not offer sick pay and can't afford to miss a pay check. Taking a sick day isn't always an option for everyone.

 

As a general statement - yes, I'm sure. In my work situation, me and him have the same job. We get ample sick leave and taking it doesn't affect your job opportunities. My job allows your to accrue sick leave and carry it year to year so it's not unusual to accrue a balance where you can take months off if you needed to (we don't get any short term or long disability benefits or paid maternity or paternity leave so this isn't as generous as it may sound. Most people blow through their time if their get any major injury or have a child). But the co-worker I'm speaking of has plenty of accrued sick time, he was just being selfish. Prior to COVID we had nothing in place where you could be forced to go home if you were sick unless it impacted your ability to do your job. Now we do.

Edited May 22, 2020 by sanger727

[sanger727]

47 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

I refer you to the excellent points made in post #21.

 

Especially in the US, employers are generally stingy with sick leave. Companies tend to give a paltry few days for the entire year -- in my company it used to be 5, out of which one also had to take any regular check-ups, visits to the doctor or dentist, etc. Or they give employees one bucket for all paid time off (PTO), out of which employees then have to manage any vacation time, sick time, and other reasons why one may not be able to be at work including family care.

 

If employers were more forthcoming about allowing paid time off whenever the employee is sick, or at least for COVID-related illness in the immediate period, I feel more people would stay at home because they would not have the "pressure" to come to work.

 

 

 

It took us awhile to get there, but my job finally realized that people coming to work with COVID infecting others was worse than them staying home. So our policy now is that if you have COVID symptoms you MUST stay home and call your doctor to arrange a COVID test. If you test is positive then all time off is paid and not deducted from your sick time. (Our job classification allows us to get covid tests even if you don't meet the CDC requirements for one).

[slidergirl]

58 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

I refer you to the excellent points made in post #21.

 

Especially in the US, employers are generally stingy with sick leave. Companies tend to give a paltry few days for the entire year -- in my company it used to be 5, out of which one also had to take any regular check-ups, visits to the doctor or dentist, etc. Or they give employees one bucket for all paid time off (PTO), out of which employees then have to manage any vacation time, sick time, and other reasons why one may not be able to be at work including family care.

 

If employers were more forthcoming about allowing paid time off whenever the employee is sick, or at least for COVID-related illness in the immediate period, I feel more people would stay at home because they would not have the "pressure" to come to work.

 

 

My last place, we had 5 sick days and 10 "PTO" days each year for year-round, full time employees.  If you were seasonal or under 32 hrs/week, you had nothing.   Fortunately, the 3 of us were good handling the load if one of us was sick.  We think we each may have had COVID before it was COVID.  Either that, or it was the worst case of flu and bronchitis we each have had.  Lots of our guests were sick, and a few went to the ER.  Life in a winter resort town.

 

The place before that we had to find another employee to take our place if we wanted to call out sick.  Very hard to do with shift work and being shorthanded anyway - managers would not help out.  I would come in anyway and then ask my manager if she REALLY needed me - I thought if she saw me, she'd think otherwise and let me go.  Think again.  It ended with me calling in the middle of the night saying they could fire me if they wanted to, but I was staying home.  I went and saw my MD, and she immediately sent me to the ER...

 

I am wary of the temperature checks currently to "clear" someone to enter a building or whatever.  Part of my belief that "everyone lies" when it comes to hospitality or public behavior, taking Tylenol/Advil before you go somewhere you know will check your temp could put the odds in your favor to be cleared.  Right now, there is no good way to truly determine the health/unhealth of someone.  That is what keeps me from venturing out among the masses right now.  

 

[ed01106]

There is a huge swatch of middle ground between useless and 100% perfect.

 

Temperature checks land in that middle ground,  If 30% of all people with Covid-19 don’t have an elevated fever that means the method will weed out 70%.  Far from fool proof, but a very good start.

 

Masks, social distancing, temperature checks, testing, contact tracing .... none of these are 100% perfect.  But we don’t need perfect, we need a couple of months of R0 being less than 1. 

[donaldsc]

32 minutes ago, ed01106 said:

There is a huge swatch of middle ground between useless and 100% perfect.

 

Temperature checks land in that middle ground,  If 30% of all people with Covid-19 don’t have an elevated fever that means the method will weed out 70%.  Far from fool proof, but a very good start.

 

Masks, social distancing, temperature checks, testing, contact tracing .... none of these are 100% perfect.  But we don’t need perfect, we need a couple of months of R0 being less than 1. 

 

Based on your response, I went back and checked my original post.  I sort of made a major mistake and reversed my numbers.  Only 30% of the people who checked in w Covid had fevers.  That means that 70% of the people with known Covid DID NOT have a fever.  These results are clearly shown in the table from the paper that I did post and also in my quote from the article.

 

In several of my response, I indicated that 70% of the tests were false negatives which was correct however.  

 

Sorry for my error and being misleading.

 

DON

Edited May 22, 2020 by donaldsc

[Joebucks]

8 hours ago, John Bull said:

So because it finds only 30%, is that not better than finding none at all ??

Or would you suggest that for instance everyone should have been held at an airport for 48 hours or probably longer waiting for  results of laboratory tests?

 

It's always so noble to say something "helps". Let's say there's 100 people with coronavirus boarding a ship. 30 with it are detected, and 70 get on without any detection. If that make you feel better about preventing coronavirus on the ship, then so be it. At the end of the day, what is the ACTUAL difference?

[ed01106]

5 minutes ago, Joebucks said:

 

It's always so noble to say something "helps". Let's say there's 100 people with coronavirus boarding a ship. 30 with it are detected, and 70 get on without any detection. If that make you feel better about preventing coronavirus on the ship, then so be it. At the end of the day, what is the ACTUAL difference?

If Covid-19 is so widespread that 100 potential cruisers have the disease out of 3000 cruisers than we should not be cruising.  Period.  Full stop.  No further discussion needed.  That is about 50 times more active cases on a population basis than than the USA has currently.  If the pandemic is 50x worse than today then we are on total lockdown.  

 

So lets be more realistic we get the disease down to a level where 1 in 6000 people have the disease (about a quarter the number we have now).  So there is ~50% chance someone is booked on the cruise with Covid-19.  This test has a 1/3 chance of lowering the number from 1 to 0.  Is that perfect?  No.  Is that better than nothing?  Yes.  (Although not adequate for me to cruise).  

 

 

[donaldsc]

8 hours ago, John Bull said:

OK, so it finds only 30%.

But it's quick and easy, needs only basic training for any employee with half a brain to operate, and there's no mention of false positives (thus no unnecessary refused entry / quarantining, etc)

 

So because it finds only 30%, is that not better than finding none at all ??

Or would you suggest that for instance everyone should have been held at an airport for 48 hours or probably longer waiting for  results of laboratory tests?

 

I stepped off an airplane into 30+ degrees C in Tanzania, & was held in a line outside the airport building in direct sun for 20+ minutes, feeling very hot & bothered & the sweat was running into my eyes. When I reached the guy with the gun. I told him I was very very hot. He looked at the gun & said "no, you're not" (I thought "ahh, that's what my partner keeps telling me ) so certainly in my case perspiration didn't show a false positive.

 

No doubt in due course there will be quick-and-easy tests for everyone, but as a stop-gap I don't see temperature-checking as useless and certainly not just theatre.

 

JB 

 

Actually yes or sort of.  As I mentioned in another post, I was recently at the Mayo Clinic and before I could enter the facility, I had to have a nasal swab test done by Mayo at their testing facility within 3 days of the time of my visit.  Because my visit was more than 3 days, I had to have a 2nd swab test done before they would do the final 2 tests.

 

Essentially the same thing could be required for cruising.  You have to get tested with a high quality test within 3 days of the start of the cruise and present the certified test results before you board.  If they come up with a faster and accurate test than the swab (Mayo got their results in less than 24 hours), change the times before cruising to fit the new test.  

 

Before any makes a comment on this, I do realize that you could get the disease in the 3 days between your test time and boarding time but this would be a whole lot better than the 70% false negative data from the temperature gun test.

 

DON

[ed01106]

1 minute ago, donaldsc said:

 

Actually yes or sort of.  As I mentioned in another post, I was recently at the Mayo Clinic and before I could enter the facility, I had to have a nasal swab test done by Mayo at their testing facility within 3 days of the time of my visit.  Because my visit was more than 3 days, I had to have a 2nd swab test done before they would do the final 2 tests.

 

Essentially the same thing could be required for cruising.  You have to get tested with a high quality test within 3 days of the start of the cruise and present the certified test results before you board.  If they come up with a faster and accurate test than the swab (Mayo got their results in less than 24 hours), change the times before cruising to fit the new test.  

 

Before any makes a comment on this, I do realize that you could get the disease in the 3 days between your test time and boarding time but this would be a whole lot better than the 70% false negative data from the temperature gun test.

 

DON

 

Why not do both? Full blown test within 3 day before boarding AND temperature check at boarding and every port call return.  

 

The temperature test will catch some but not all of those who got sick between the formal test and boarding.

 

 

[navybankerteacher]

24 minutes ago, ed01106 said:

 

Why not do both? Full blown test within 3 day before boarding AND temperature check at boarding and every port call return.  

 

The temperature test will catch some but not all of those who got sick between the formal test and boarding.

 

 

Then, of course, there remains the question of response:  what does the ship do with those who test positive and what advice do they give to  upcoming ports?

 

I think anyone planning a cruise would like to know that the line has plans in place (and what those plans are)  - and is not just winging it hoping that things work out.   

 

 Has anyone here heard anything along these lines from any of the cruise companies?

[euro cruiser]

Apparently the rapid response test used at the White House (immediate results) is wrong up to half the time!

 

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200514/covid-test-used-at-white-house-often-wrong

 

But at least you get your response immediately.😅

[chipmaster]

19 hours ago, donaldsc said:

Everyone everywhere (ships, airports, entering building, etc) is counting on temperature checks to check to see if a person is ill with Covid.  Turns out that the temperature checks are just theater and are totally useless.

 

This is  a quote from the article which references an JAMA paper that says that 30% of 5700 patients hospitalized for Covid and known to have it do not have an elevated temperature

 

 

I love it when something isn't 100% it can contort it to be useless.

 

Let's see every time one is sick and goes to hospital they take your temperature and bloodpressure hmmm I guess those are totally useless that is why they do it first.    Why even argue when one is so narrow and can't see the bigger picture, LOL

 

BTW did you notice 30% don't have fever, dang maybe miss 30% but it catches 70% as well as others who might have infection, the common flu and we wouldn't want traveling, seems pretty good to me.

 

I've been thru customs countless times in Far East, trust me the temperature screening is the first mass screening line of defense; simple, fast, non-evasive.   

 

I guess they can pull everyone over take a swab and tick it up your nose, or perhaps have you sit down and take a ***** of blood, works really well trying to process a ton of people.   

 

You do need to balance thru put with accuracy/precision, that applies to a lot of things.

 

 

Edited May 22, 2020 by chipmaster

[donaldsc]

7 minutes ago, chipmaster said:

 

I love it when something isn't 100% it can contort it to be useless.

 

Let's see every time one is sick and goes to hospital they take your temperature and bloodpressure hmmm I guess those are totally useless that is why they do it first.    Why even argue when one is so narrow and can't see the bigger picture, LOL

 

BTW did you notice 30% don't have fever, dang maybe miss 30% but it catches 70% as well as others who might have infection, the common flu and we wouldn't want traveling, seems pretty good to me.

 

 

 

I corrected a typo error although the data in the links was correct.  Of the people who had known Covid

 

30% had a fever , tested positive w the temperature test and had Covid so the temperature check did it's job

70% did not have a fever, tested negative w the temperature test, actually had Covid so the temperature check failed.

 

That means that the temperature check misses 70% of the people who are known to have Covid.  As I also noted, nobody has any idea what the miss rate (false negative) for people who are sick but asymptomatic or who just feel a bit sick and have not gone to the hospital because the study was not designed to look for and test these people.  To find what these numbers are, you would have to test a large group of randomly selected people and give them both a temperature and swab test.  Want to bet that the false negative rate for this group would higher than 70%.  

 

DON

[2wheelin]

9 hours ago, sanger727 said:

 

I'm sure the study has limited benefit. But I also think temperature checks are not the silver bullet people seem to think they are. You can't check the temperature of everyone boarding a cruise ship or plane and equate that to mean that no one on the cruise or the plane has COVID. While I have read repeatedly that fever is a common symptom, I'm sure it's not present for everyone. It doesn't capture people that are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic or have had the illness long enough that they no longer have a fever but are still infectious. I wouldn't go as far as saying they are useless, but I also don't think they are incredibly useful.

They’re not incredibly useful but are cheap and easy as one screening tool. It’s not definitive and even an antigen test will miss pre-symptomatic and is not foolproof

[2wheelin]

7 hours ago, donaldsc said:

 

That tells us that using temperature to determine if people have Covid and that is what the cruise companies and everyone else is planning to do will miss 70% of the people, who do have Covid.  In other words, it will miss more people with Covid than it will find.  I still say that the this means that the test is useless and just theater.  WE all know that the reason that everyone uses the temperature check is that it is cheap, fast and gives instantaneous results.  Bad results but cheap and fast.

 

I read the paper and it appears to be a good one in terms of its purpose which was to determine what parameters 7000 patients with Covid had when they were admitted to the hospital.  

 

One more thing.  Would you call the Mayo Clinic a major medical institution.  I was just there for 4 days for tests.  They require a nasal swab test administered by them before you can go into any of their facilities.  The test is good for only 3 days and because I was there for 4 days, I had to get a 2nd test.  Both were negative.  

 

DON

Yes, absolutely. The paper was not intended to show the efficacy of temp checking as a screening tool. It only tested hospitalized patients with an independent positive test (which was also probably not 100% accurate). I don’t think temp checking is proof positive one way or the other but it is still a useful tool. No one has only one tool in their toolbox.

As for the Mayo Clinic, you are mistaken there. A swab test is required only for certain procedures—or if you have positive answers to any of the screening questions. It depends on what you are being seen for. And temp screening is done on everyone before being admitted to the building. Technically, usually you are admitted to the facility to HAVE the swab test.

 

[chipmaster]

18 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

 

I corrected a typo error although the data in the links was correct.  Of the people who had known Covid

 

30% had a fever , tested positive w the temperature test and had Covid so the temperature check did it's job

70% did not have a fever, tested negative w the temperature test, actually had Covid so the temperature check failed.

 

That means that the temperature check misses 70% of the people who are known to have Covid.  As I also noted, nobody has any idea what the miss rate (false negative) for people who are sick but asymptomatic or who just feel a bit sick and have not gone to the hospital because the study was not designed to look for and test these people.  To find what these numbers are, you would have to test a large group of randomly selected people and give them both a temperature and swab test.  Want to bet that the false negative rate for this group would higher than 70%.  

 

DON

 

30% screening still better than nothing for something so easy to do and non evasive.  Also screens for a lot of other things too, I assume you don't wear mask, either.  Darn the glass 2/3 empty, or darn it is 1/3 full, LOL

[ilikeanswers]

5 hours ago, slidergirl said:

I am wary of the temperature checks currently to "clear" someone to enter a building or whatever.  Part of my belief that "everyone lies" when it comes to hospitality or public behavior, taking Tylenol/Advil before you go somewhere you know will check your temp could put the odds in your favor to be cleared.  

 

Months ago before flights from China were cancelled there was a case of a Chinese traveller who bragged on social media about using some medication to lower her fever so she could pass the temperature check that France had imposed on visitors at the airport. After her posts the authorities did track her down but it does make me wonder if it is that easy to trick won't everyone just take a pill before their flight lands or boarding their ship? 

[chipmaster]

4 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

Months ago before flights from China were cancelled there was a case of a Chinese traveller who bragged on social media about using some medication to lower her fever so she could pass the temperature check that France had imposed on visitors at the airport. After her posts the authorities did track her down but it does make me wonder if it is that easy to trick won't everyone just take a pill before their flight lands or boarding their ship? 

 

Perhaps I will also carry a little nose snot, blood, and pills to suppress and hide everything. 

 

You know the intent of the screening is to catch the majority of the population. There is always the devious person, as well as the troll on CC who throws criticism at how everything is so ineffective, LOL

 

 

[ilikeanswers]

17 minutes ago, chipmaster said:

You know the intent of the screening is to catch the majority of the population. There is always the devious person, as well as the troll on CC who throws criticism at how everything is so ineffective, LOL

 

I am not talking about something that needs special skills or access. They are over the counter pills that are usually in conjunction with pain killers. Most people would already own a pack. We know the majority of people lie on the passenger health questionnaire popping a cheap harmless pill would hardly be any extra effort and probably worth it to people worried about losing the cost of their cruise. 

[chipmaster]

9 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

I am not talking about something that needs special skills or access. They are over the counter pills that are usually in conjunction with pain killers. Most people would already own a pack. We know the majority of people lie on the passenger health questionnaire popping a cheap harmless pill would hardly be any extra effort and probably worth it to people worried about losing the cost of their cruise. 

 

Get on a cruise selfishly and die on the ship and infect the rest, hmm hopefully people are that callous!

[2wheelin]

1 hour ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

I am not talking about something that needs special skills or access. They are over the counter pills that are usually in conjunction with pain killers. Most people would already own a pack. We know the majority of people lie on the passenger health questionnaire popping a cheap harmless pill would hardly be any extra effort and probably worth it to people worried about losing the cost of their cruise. 

We do?? So the majority of people are NOT healthy???  Maybe they should do temperature checks......

[ilikeanswers]

19 minutes ago, 2wheelin said:

We do?? So the majority of people are NOT healthy???  Maybe they should do temperature checks......

 

If you want to be specific "a majority of people who feel ill". I assumed it was implied I was talking about sick people after all I doubt you would take a fever reducing pill if you felt healthy. 

Edited May 23, 2020 by ilikeanswers

[ilikeanswers]

2 hours ago, chipmaster said:

Get on a cruise selfishly and die on the ship and infect the rest, hmm hopefully people are that callous!

 

I don't think people are catastrophizing like that. They would be thinking like that Chinese traveller "I don't want to miss my trip because I am a little feverish so I will take this antipyretic and I am sure I will get better and everything will be fine" 

[donaldsc]

3 hours ago, chipmaster said:

 

30% screening still better than nothing for something so easy to do and non evasive.  Also screens for a lot of other things too, I assume you don't wear mask, either.  Darn the glass 2/3 empty, or darn it is 1/3 full, LOL

 

Wrong!  I wear a mask AND gloves whenever I go out.  Do you wear both.  Masks and gloves have definitely been shown to work.

 

DON

[chipmaster]

49 minutes ago, 2wheelin said:

We do?? So the majority of people are NOT healthy???  Maybe they should do temperature checks......

 

Well if obesity counts as unhealthy no wonder US leads in death, sad how the richest seem to eat a bit much at the buffet 😄