Dallas Schools to Use WelloStations to Monitor Students' Temperatures
Posted on October 3, 2014
The Ebola patient in Dallas, Texas came in contact with many people during the four days he was symptomatic and potentially shedding the virus. The CDC says the man had about 100 contacts. Five of these are students at Dallas schools. The New York Times reports that these five students attended four different schools in Dallas. They are being kept at home where they will be monitored for signs of the disease, which include a fever.
Ebola is said to spread only when a patient has symptoms, but parents are obviously extremely concerned that students that had contact with an Ebola patient were in classrooms and walking the halls with their children. WFAA reports that the Dallas schools are going to install remote temperature monitors to measure temperatures of the children in the schools. These devices for fever screening are known as WelloStations. They are manufactured by a company called Wello, Inc.
The company says its WelloStation can measure body temperature with a 0.18˚ Fahrenheit accuracy in three seconds. The person does not need to touch the monitor to have their temperature read. They only need to focus their eyes on the monitor. The monitor's orbital camera focuses on the canthus, the corner of the eye where the upper and lower eyelids meet. It measures the temperature of the canthus and uses it to extrapolate a core body temperature using a computer algorithm.
Wello says in a tweet that is loaning the monitors to the schools until the Ebola risk passes. Bizjournals reports that the stations cost $2,500 each. The devices can also store recorded data in the cloud. The company has not said whether or not it will be storing the data it collects from the students.