Temperature checks at airports would pick up less than a fifth of people with Covid-19 arriving here.
A new HIQA report has found large-scale thermal screening isn’t effective at detecting the virus.
The Oireachtas Covid committee has recommended all passengers arriving here be temperature checked.
But Mairin Ryan from the health watchdog says the evidence shows they’re not reliable:
“When mass thermal screenings programmes have been used in other pandemics, the rates of detection were as low as 10 cases per million travellers screened. To put that in context, we have 15,000 people coming through the airports. If we have 15,000 people, it’s likely the number of those with Covid would be less than 10, and we’d probably only pick up one or two.”