Durian. Indonesian National Covid-19 Task Force denied claims that the widely-used of infrared thermometers, or thermometer guns, can cause hazardous side effects to the brain.
The task force spokesman Achmad Yurianto said those claims and statements were baseless and simply not true.
He added thermometer guns measure temperature by “reading” infrared light radiated by the body, and therefore, don’t use laser or radioactive rays like, for example, X-ray.
“Those claims are not true [because thermometer guns] only use infrared,” Yurianto said in Jakarta on July 20.
According to US-based science website Sciencing, thermometer guns “use a lens to focus infrared light from one object onto a detector called a thermopile”.
The thermopile will then absorb the infrared radiation and turns it into heat. The heat is then turned into electricity, which will be measured.
The more rays radiated by the object, the more electricity it will result in – which also means the hotter the object is.
As for the light coming from the thermometer guns, it only helps showing which area is being detected by the guns and will not cause radiation.
Yurianto said that misinformation about the device can put more people in danger and will make the effort to contain the spread of Covid-19 virus even more difficult.
