St Maarten Airport Installs AI-Powered Fever Screening

St Maarten’s Princess Juliana International Airport has installed new state-of-the-art “mass fever screening equipment,” officials said. 

The new technology works with artificial intelligence and algorithms which “measure a high accuracy rate on temperature recognition.”

The airport has already completed a testing phase on the equipment, which is stationed at the entrance of the arrivals section, manned by airport personnel. 

After what the airport is calling “discreet surveillance,” passengers are screened before entering the immigration line. 

St Maarten reopened to most travelers earlier this month; it has announced a tentative Aug. 1 return date for U.S. travelers. 

“Mass fever screening is certainly not considered as the “holy grail” of COVID-19 detection, due to a high number of asymptomatic patients and it is not effective if used as the only means of detecting a COVID-19 infection,” the airport said in a statement. “It is part of a wider safety mechanism which includes all the necessary Personal Protective Equipment’s (PPEs) for frontline staff, protection barriers at all counters, mandatory face covering, increased hand sanitizing and sophisticated air circulation and cleaning and disinfecting protocols in the Terminal Building.”

— CJ