After nearly a year of dealing with COVID-19, it’s no overstatement to say that the pandemic has hurt several businesses. Forced business closures, customers spending less, and the prohibitive cost of operating with the appropriate measures in place are decimating businesses across the world. As businesses across the nation lose millions of dollars to stay open, Yelp claims that nearly 100,000 small businesses throughout the US have closed permanently as a result of the pandemic.
COVID-19 is also making businesses rethink what it means to keep their employees and customers safe. Beyond regular security, businesses are now on the hook for assuring that their workforce and customers are protected from COVID-19. To stay on top of this challenge, businesses will need inventive solutions to keep their businesses running while concurrently prioritizing the protection of their employees and customers.
A New Type of Security: Surveillance Analytics
From schools to businesses, organizations everywhere are showing that they can readjust to the current conditions with the right tools. Motorola’s Video Security & Analytics team realized early on that Avigilon security solutions had an important role to play in setting up organizations to be successful. Avigilon critically assessed their current solutions and modified them to answer today’s pandemic response needs.
These solutions help businesses address multiple security needs that resulted from this pandemic. Here’s how surveillance analytics can help your business.
Counting Numbers
For years, retailers have been counting the number of people in their stores. For a few reasons: adjusting staff schedules, predicting revenue trends, and calculating growth. Now, keeping tabs on how many people are in your business is a necessary part of managing the implications of the pandemic. With Avigilon’s occupancy counting technology, existing security cameras and surveillance analytics software can be used to create a distinct, accurate picture of a business’s occupancy.
The Key to Social Distancing
Until the pandemic, you likely never had to estimate the distance between you and other people. But, being aware of your space and checking if you’re six feet away from other people is a crucial part of keeping people safe. But since we’re not used to it, it’s a huge reason why social distancing is such a difficult policy to keep. When AI-powered analytics is integrated with your video security system, the surveillance analytics provides you access to assess the distance between people as well as the ability to analyze traffic patterns within your business. Information like this can go a long way in empowering your security teams to make knowledgeable judgments when they set up social distancing guidelines throughout your business.
Contact Tracing Through Surveillance Analytics
Having a COVID-19 case traced to your business or school could shut down your facility for an extended period. A positive case also endangers your employees and while simultaneously hurting your bottom line. With Avigilon technology in place, your business can significantly decrease the risk or downtime your business might experience. With Avigilon’s AI-enabled surveillance analytics you can help provide prompt insight into where a person who has tested positive has been within your business, and who they were in contact with. Decreasing the time it takes to analyze this information saves your money time, money, and potentially lives.
Rising to the difficulties posed by the pandemic is tough for all of us, but this technology can help you and your business. For more information on how AI and advanced surveillance analytics can give your business certainty and confidence during uncertain times give us a call or send us a message.
Protecting Essential Workers
Essential workers are risking COVID-19 infection every day. And the stress of a pandemic is changing the way the public deals with essential workers. With increasing reports of aggression and violence against essential workers and the risk of contamination, employers must care for their employees. They have to ensure the safety of their essential workers who are keeping communities
functioning.
How Body-worn Cameras Help
A body-worn camera is a small, unobtrusive device specifically designed for commercial businesses to deter public aggression towards workers. In addition to recording interactions, the cameras provide an added sense of security to those wearing them.
During the current COVID-19 pandemic, verbal and physical abuse, including deliberate coughing and spitting on frontline workers, has been documented within stores from Missouri and Massachusetts to the United Kingdom. Many leading fast-casual restaurants are issuing body-worn cameras to the staff assigned to enforcing social distancing rules within their store.
During such incidents, the employee can verbally notify the aggressor of the fact they are wearing a body-worn camera, which often de-escalates the situation immediately. However, in cases where the abuse continues, the body-worn camera is activated by the employee simply with the click of a button.
This click initiates recording and when a body-worn camera is used in combination with the employer’s existing surveillance system, it can prompt an alarm and live video stream to the control room. This alarm then alerts security staff to the incident and allows urgent evaluation of the situation. The benefit of this integration is that body-worn camera footage is available alongside CCTV, giving an overall view of the incident as it unfolds. Should the need arise, the body-worn camera footage can be shared with law enforcement officials to assist in an investigation. This reduces the amount of time required to convict an offender and can reduce the emotional impact on the victim by alleviating the need to appear in court.
The installation of a body-worn camera system is cost-effective and simple. It is easily suited to any company’s IT infrastructure and network. And the cameras are intuitive to use, requiring minimal operational training for employees.
During periods of uncertainty, protecting essential workers and equipping them with the tools to do their job safely and without fear is critical. By leveraging Avigilon’s body-worn camera technology, companies can guarantee their employees are ready to protect themselves.
Elevated Temperature Screening Kiosk FAQ
Our whole world has changed with the beginning of this pandemic. Everyone keeps talking about the new normal. What does that mean for you? What does that mean for your business? As we all have, I’m sure you’ve had to implement new policies and procedures to keep your business open and safe. How have these things worked for you? Well, you are reading this FAQ right now, which leads me to believe you are still looking to take your business’s safety to the next level and ultimately, you still have some questions. You’ve come to the right place!
How Does Your Temperature Screening Kiosk Work?
It’s pretty simple. Our elevated temperature screener is different than most, for a few reasons. It starts with where we get our temperature readings. Our kiosk takes the temperature from the inner canthus (inner eye) instead of the forehead. To do this, we use a radiometric thermal imaging camera that produces accurate temperature data from every pixel of an image. The temperature data that is collected is then processed and displayed on a 7” HD LED screen. Temperatures in a safe range are then given a green light, both on-screen and with a green LED light located on top of the kiosk. Alternatively, an elevated temperature will trigger a red stop sign on screen and an external LED red light on top of the kiosk. And when the temperature screening kiosk is attached to access control, a signal is then sent to the door to either lock or unlock depending on temperature results. And with an accuracy of ±.5°, it’s an easy addition to any business’s safety plan.
What is Radiometric Thermal Imaging?
To fully understand radiometric thermal imaging, we must start by understanding what infrared energy is. Infrared energy radiant energy that comes of every object that we can sense heat from. While every object has infrared energy, it is invisible to the human eye. We’ve all seen the images of a red and orange face radiating heat. That’s taken by an infrared camera. Radiometric thermal imaging is taking the same image and instead of just viewing the emitting heat, measuring it. These measurements get sent back to a screen that is then read as temperatures. In short, radiometric thermal imaging is the measuring of infrared heat with an infrared camera.
Can You Scan Multiple People At Once?
The short answer is, no. The only way to screen multiple people at one time is with multiple screening devices. The most accurate way to measure a person’s body temperature is through their tear duct. It would be impossible to scan multiple tear ducts at the same time with the same device. Companies that claim to scan multiple people at a time are likely using forehead scanners which are extremely inaccurate. However, DSI’s temperature screening kiosk can scan individuals in 3-seconds, which is one of the fastest in the industry. But as far as scanning multiple people at the same time? There is simply no effective and safe way to measure multiple people at the same time with the same screening device.
Why Don’t Forehead Scanners Work?
According to experts, forehead scanners are “notoriously inaccurate”. This is because they are taking the temperature from the surface of our skin. Our skin temperature fluctuates based on our environment. If your local temperature is hot, your skin will be hotter than in the middle of winter. The variance in skin temperature makes it impossible for a forehead scanner to continually deliver an accurate reading. To get a non-invasive, consistent, and accurate temperature reading, experts suggest using the inner canthus to screen individuals for elevated temperatures. The inner canthus is more accurate because a person’s body temperature is more consistent and doesn’t fluctuate as much as skin temperature.
Does Elevated Temperature Screening Detect the Coronavirus?
Detecting the Coronavirus (Covid-19) requires a specialized medical test that specifically tests for the virus. Temperature screening devices are just thermometers that test individuals on a large scale. These screening devices scan individuals to find people with elevated body temperatures, which is an indication someone may have Covid-19. Even if someone screened has an elevated temperature, it does not mean that individual has tested positive for Covid-19. Individuals with elevated temperatures are usually denied access to their office or school and are encouraged to go get an official Covid-19 test at a medical facility. A temperature screening kiosk can not determine if someone has Covid-19. It can only detect a fever which is a symptom of Covid-19. When a temperature screening kiosk is paired with a screening form, the safety of employees or students is increased significantly.
How Can a Temperature Screening Kiosk Protect My Business?
A temperature screening kiosk protects your business by mitigating potentially sick people from entering your office or school. By doing this, you are protecting your employees, students, and visitors from potential community spread. In businesses where community spread occurred, they shut down for multiple weeks. When this happens, companies are potentially losing millions in lost production and governmental fines. Screening everyone that enters your facility significantly reduces the risk of that happening. The moment an elevated temperature is detected, that person can be immediately sent home. Virtually eliminating any chance of contact and community spread. Which in turn limits the possibility of your business shutting down, losing production, and losing money. Temperature screening kiosks keep your employees safe and keep your business making money.
