Workplace temperature checks will be a key component of reopening the city from its coronavirus shutdown, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.
“To be able to come back you need testing in our city, probably hundreds of thousands of tests per day, you need temperature checks going into workplaces, you need all sorts things to make sure that anyone who’s sick is immediately isolated and supported in quarantine,” de Blasio said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
It was the first time the mayor has mentioned temperature checks as part of the Big Apple’s reopening plan. Fever is a telltale symptom of COVID-19.
Over the weekend New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy suggested customers entering restaurants should be checked for a fever once his state emerges from its shelter-in-place.
Walmart and Amazon already screen their employees with thermometers.
But de Blasio said New York City is still “months” away from returning to normal.
“First of all we have to drive down these numbers,” he said on MSNBC, referencing the city’s climbing death toll that surpassed 13,000 Sunday night.
“When you’re still losing hundreds of people a day, when hundreds of people are dying a day, when your ICUs are still full that’s not turning the corner,” de Blasio said.
“We’ve got to keep driving that down with the social distancing the shelter in place, all the things we’re doing,” he said.
He also pleaded with the federal government to help the city increase its limited testing capacity.
