Photo/Illutration The monitor shows a temperature of 28.9 degrees for the man trying to enter the first-floor entrance of the Nagasaki prefectural government building on Jan. 29. (Hikaru Yokoyama)

NAGASAKI--A pricey thermal camera and monitor system to stop people with COVID-19 entering the Nagasaki prefectural government building is running haywire, reporting hypothermic readings for those who pass through the doors.

The pandemic has made thermal cameras to check peoples' temperatures and video monitors displaying the results ubiquitous at the entrances of companies and government offices.

But the gear installed at the Nagasaki prefectural government building is creating a buzz for all the wrong reasons, as its readings are showing much cooler heads than expected among those who enter.

One morning in late January, a man wearing a black coat hurried into the building's third-floor entrance and stopped in front of the thermal camera.

He was stunned to find his temperature a heart-stopping low 27 degrees.

The security guard standing nearby didn't bat an eye. The cameras have become a hot topic among prefectural government officials for often recording temperatures under 30 degrees.

Responding to the spread of the third wave of the novel coronavirus, the Nagasaki prefectural government installed thermal cameras at four entrances to the building on Jan. 7. The system including the video monitors cost 8,167,136 yen ($77,800).

The system is set to sound an alarm whenever someone with a temperature over 37.5 degrees attempts to enter the building.

But a day after it was installed, people began saying the temperatures it displayed were abnormally low.

The cameras are designed to measure the temperature on the skin's surface so anyone coming to the government building on a cold day would have a low temperature because their skin had still not warmed up. 

Government employees at the building found most people had readings of 30 degrees, after they compared their results from the system with one another.

The average normal human body temperature is generally 36.5 to 37.5 degrees.

Some working in the social welfare and public health section in charge of health care professionals have raised questions about whether there was any meaning to having the equipment.

“In the morning, it never shows a temperature that reaches 30 degrees," one security guard at the building said.

Another guard said concerns about the body temperatures have likely already been raised because of how unusual the results have been.

Those in the section handling asset management admit they never expected the thermal cameras to produce results about 10 degrees lower than actual body temperatures.

On the last Sunday in January, the thermal cameras were moved about three meters to the side of the entrance to lengthen the time between entering the building and taking the temperature of people coming in.

Related News