How can sensing be used to protect attendees at an indoor convention?

For the Royal International Miss 2020 Pageant, plans were in the making for several months and in spite of the COVID-19 virus, the state OK’d the convention and the hotel made every effort to ensure the safety of attendees. To avoid a person with the virus from entering the hotel and infecting attendees, a temperature screen was conducted on everyone who entered the building and entrances were reduced to minimize the number of test locations.

The non-contact temperature measurement was made on an access control frame with body-temperature detection performed by placing the wrist 6 inches or less away from the body-temperature sensor. Audio and visual alarms triggered if a body-temperature measurement exceeded the user-defined setting. Normally used as a walk-through metal detector, the metal detector coil was not installed in this temperature screening model.

The second and required part of temperature screening process is confirming and communicating to others that an attendee has passed the temperature screen. At each entry point, a hotel representative provided a colored security wristband made from the same durable material used in hospitals to identify patients but without any personal information, so other hotel guests could observe that the person had been successfully screened. A different color wristband was used each day, so a person leaving the hotel would be tested for each reentry if they did not have the current day’s color band to verify that they were still within the predetermined limits.

Did the system work? A few people with excessive temperature readings were detected and prevented from entering the hotel and pageant organizers were unaware of any COVID-19 problems during the week on day 7 of the event.