Police in Malaysia are using drones to reveal people with high temperatures in public spaces as part of Covid avoidance measures, according to local media.
The drones, which can detect people’s temperatures as high as 20m above ground, emit a red light to alert the authorities if someone has a high reviewing, Bernama, Malaysia’s state news agency, disclosed.
Malaysia entered a near total national lockdown last week in an endeavor to halt rising daily diseases, which had reached more than 9,000 by the end of May.
Though daily cases have since collapse, health director general, Noor Hisham Abdullah, has warned that the majority of new infections and deaths were from unknown contacts. “One of the reasons is the emergence of new variants in the community which have higher infectivity and fatality rates,” he said in a statement on Monday, urging people to stay home.
Under the lockdown rules, only two people from each household are allowed to go out to buy essentials, do non-contact sport, or seek medical treatment near to their home. Schools and shopping malls are shut, though much of the manufacturing sector has continued to conduct with a decreased workforce.
Malaysian police have already warned they will use drones to enforce earlier travel constraint, with officers in some areas also stating they would carry out surprise home visits to ensure people were following rules.
China reportedly used drones last year as part of its virus avoidance efforts. According to a video posted by state-controlled Global Times, drones were used to spray hand sanitiser, and tell citizens to stay home. In one video filmed in Inner Mongolia region, a drone hovers over an elderly woman, telling her “yes, aunty, this is the drone speaking to you. You shouldn’t walk about without wearing a mask.”
Rohaimi Md Isa, police chief of Terengganu state, told Bernama that officers had begun using the temperature monitoring drones over recent days. “Although we have 157 monitoring teams, they move from one location to another. They are unable to monitor every location at once, including identify symptomatic individuals in public places,” he said.
