Woman with 'high temperature' tries to enter shopping malls in social experiment

Taking our temperatures before walking through a door or entering a building has become almost second nature during the pandemic.

As part of Singapore's fight against Covid-19, thermal scanners are placed at the entrances of public places to help monitor the temperature of visitors, with alarms going off when someone appears to have a fever.

On Tuesday (May 4), a social experiment titled 'Is it possible to enter a mall with a high temperature?' by Shout got people talking on social media.

In the video, a woman was seen intentionally raised her temperature by placing heat packs under her headgear before visiting several popular shopping malls in the town area. 

She breezed through the first mall despite a 37.7°C reading, saying: “[The security guard] just let me through even though there was an alarm. The machine said abnormal temperature like twice and I stood there for quite a while but she still let me through.”

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At other malls, the woman encountered personnel who appeared distracted while manning the temperature screening booths — one of them was watching TikTok videos on his phone as people walked through the mall entrance.

On one occasion, her temperature was detected to be over 40°C – much higher than the 38°C that's considered to be a fever.

Despite the alarm going off, the woman was allowed to enter the shopping mall.

While temperature screening appeared to be lax at some places, there was a security guard who followed protocol and denied her entrance into a shopping mall.

Upon the thermal scanner reading out “temperature breach, please stop”, he followed up by stopping the woman in her tracks and suggested that she wait by the side for a short while. 

Since last year, temperature screening staff at shopping malls and large standalone stores are required to check customers for visible symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, breathlessness, and a runny nose at entrances, and turn away those who appear unwell.

Video filmed months ago?

While comments on the video — viewed over 135,000 times on Facebook — focused on lapses made by the temperature screening staff, one Facebook user questioned the reason behind the publication's timing of releasing the video.

As festive decorations were spotted in the video, it appeared that the video was filmed quite some time ago and does not reflect the current Covid-19 situation in Singapore. 

With Singapore seeing its worst spate of community infections in a year, authorities have recently tightened Covid-19 measures such as cutting down the number of people allowed in social gatherings from eight to five, as well as limit social gatherings to two a day.

As for shopping malls and large standalone stores, their occupancy limit has been reduced to one person per 10 sqm of Gross Floor Area.

This will be implemented throughout the month of May and retail establishments are encouraged to cancel all events, promotions, or sales that will generate crowds at their physical premises. 

amierul@asiaone.com