In Beijing, the capital of China, students went back to their classrooms on May 11th wearing an electronic bracelet that measures their temperature in real time and issues a warning should there be a fever – one of the symptoms of Covid-19. The measure is meant to prevent the spread of the disease in schools.

Students’ temperature will be collected by the device and sent to computers at the Municipal Board of Education and to an app installed on parents’or guardians’ mobile phones. Whenever a student has a temperature of 37 degrees Celsius or more, parents, teachers, and legal entities will be notified. No other personal information will be stored on the device.

The main advantage of the bracelet over a common thermometer is its practicality. Teachers do not need to interrupt classes to take students’ temperatures, and the Municipal Board and parents can monitor everything from a distance. The technology is based on digital bracelets and watches that monitor heartbeats.

This is not the only precaution Chinese schools are taking. All students are wearing masks, maintaining the minimum recommended distance between them of about one metre, and washing their hands frequently. The number of students in each class has also decreased.

In China, close to 31 million high school students and almost 44 million elementary school students have gone back to school. Pre-schoolers have returned to school in just eight provinces, which are similar to states in Brazil. China was the first country affected by the new coronavirus, and onsite classes were interrupted there in January.

Questions

1) How does the bracelet know that the student might have Covid-19?
a) Doing a quick Covid-19 test
b) Measuring the temperature to detect fever
c) Using GPS to find out if the student had contact with anyone who was infected
d) Asking students a few questions

2) Do you think this is an efficient way to control the virus in schools?

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