President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on 24 May that the entire country would move from level 4 to level 3 lockdown with effect from 1 June 2020, which marks a significant shift in the government’s approach to the pandemic.
“This will result in the opening up of the economy and the removal of a number of restrictions on the movement of people, while significantly expanding and intensifying our public health interventions,” he said.
This means that South African businesses will have to find the best balance for controlling Covid-19 and avoiding economic disaster – and there’s a stack of regulations and directives to implement.
The health and safety directives state that every employer must take measures to screen all their employees when they report for work daily to ascertain whether they have any of the observable symptoms associated with COVID-19. However, the size of the business determines the level of detail required and while smaller businesses need a basic plan, large and medium size businesses would require a more detailed strategy to cater for the large number of persons at the workplace.
Schools and universities will also have to institute a plan when the country moves to lockdown Level 3 and a third of the student population will return to campus, however, daily Covid-19 screenings of students and staff members will be required.
Screening requires non-contact thermometers and already a multitude of these instruments are available but many don’t live up to the manufacturers’ promises and experts say the accuracy of temperature checking depends on the type of thermometer being used and the person administering the test.
So for employers to “provide and maintain as far as is reasonably practicable a working environment that is safe and without risks to the health of employees” careful consideration will have to be given to the type of non-contact thermometer used and Major Tech recommends a thermal imager that will do the job accurately and reliably.
Screening large numbers of people is time-consuming and requires a high-performance thermal imager such as the MTiB12 from Major Tech, developed for the coronavirus epidemic situation and offers instantaneous measurement at 50Hz.
The system default setting is 37.3 °C and, as soon as a temperature measurement point exceeding 37.3 °C is detected, the device will sound a ‘beep beep’ alarm indicating a high temperature alert.
The MTiB12 comes with free and powerful professional analysis software, Bluetooth real-time transmission, which can save and share temperature measurement data at any time, store full-screen temperature measurement information, and support online temperature measurement analysis.
Other features include:
- Display resolution 2-inch display, 240 x 320 pixels
- Screening temperature range: 32~42 °C with a measurement accuracy: ± 0.5 °C
- Thermal sensitivity: <0.1°C I 300C (80°F) / 100mK
- lmage frame rate: 50Hz
- Focus mode: Focus-free
- Working wavelength: 8-14um
- Accuracy: ±2°C (+ 3.6°F) or ± 2% of reading
- Automatically marks the highest and lowest temperature in the area
- Image storage format: BMP format with temperature measurement data
- Bluetooth
- Rechargeable lithium battery that can work continuously for 8 hours
- Drop test: 2m drop resistance