Local businesses using new technology to screen temperatures

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- While non-essential businesses remain closed, some business owners have taken a proactive approach to a day when the local economy will reopen.

"No matter what we do, we can't prevent everything," says Rick Souza, General Manager of No Surrender Unlimited. "Whether its COVID-19 or the common flu, what we can do is make that first step. Because if we're not moving forward then we're just moving backward.'

The new No Surrender Unlimited in southeast Fresno was open for exactly one day before the shelter in place order hit.

Now, owners of the family fun center are working to install thermal imaging cameras to screen customers and employees for fevers before they're allowed in.

If anyone registers a temperature above the allowed threshold, they will be asked to leave.

"Basically the way it works is it takes a thermal look of just the region of the face and it can isolate the face very well, and it gives you a temperature reading," says Robert Morris with On Display.

The device itself might look like something out of a sci-fi flick, but the Fresno-based company behind the technology On Display says a number of local business owners are now lining up to install scanners in their establishments.

"It's been very busy," Morris said. "A lot of traffic to our website, a lot of phone calls, a lot of orders. It's obviously been highly in demand."

Privacy concerns have been raised with this new technology, but the team from On Display says scanners do not store any personal information or any other data.

"This is just connected to a localized database, so business owners can make sure employees are scanned properly," Morris said. "It's not hooked up to anything else. It's just a localized unit in that sense."

Some may question just how precise these scanners are because they measure external body temperature and do not take into account asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus.

Owners at No Surrender are hopeful once the shelter in place order is lifted, employees can welcome back happy and healthy families.

For more news coverage on the coronavirus and COVID-19 go to ABC30.com/coronavirus