I just read that they are going to start thermal screening all international arriving passengers to Australia at major airports starting today. Hopefully this will help screen for flu. Would be interested in hearing from anyone who has landed & gone through this how the process works & how much extra time is involved. I am not saying they should not do it but just interested in how it is working. Thanks J

Haven't been through one but as far as I know it's a walk through portal that uses infrared heat detection to give a body temperature reading.

It's an interesting concept for I read there's about eight units available and if that means one per airport you'd have to have them at end of arrivals hall or at least after last arrivals docking disembark and so you might have some infected people all being funnelled into a closer space, possibly with people from other planes when there are arrivals within a few minutes of oneanother.

That might enhance greater spreading if anything unkless they get all arrivals to put on face masks on leaving the plane.
And though some people may feel they are being held up, how often do yoiu get down tio the luggage collection only to wait 20-30 minutes or longer [more spreading].
The ones that it'll be frustrating will be carry on only luggage passengers.

Flying gets to be even more fun!

Just updating that for you Jules and if the one shown on SBS news tonight is typical, they're a walk past station and not a walk through one.

Something like a scanning dish [transmitter/receiver] set up on a tripod in a Vee shaped area so passengers can walk either side, it being a wide angle scan and bodies heat is shown on a viewing screen.

Going to be interesting if you have a horde of passengers approach as people on screen will have to identify hotties and have them taken aside and so it'll come down to logistics of how many on duty you have Vs how many hotties I imagine as to effectiveness re not only hold-ups but also if monitoring officers get distracted if a few come through at once, then some others could sleep through unless they have an audible alarm and run a boom gate scenario.

Government has already said to expect delays.

And then if there are already carriers undetected and they are flying domestic that'll be dandy!

Thanks Bushranger. I saw the press release saying that there could be significant delays so was wondering how it was panning out. I haven't seen anything in the press in recent days saying that the delays are out of the box or anything. I will hopefully be landing there on an A380 in a couple of weeks so I can see what it is like for myself then. Like you say hopefully you are screened - immigration & then your bag is waiting for you!

I have been through one. There was a little bottle neck as we approached the scanner but then nothing to report. Have had much worse when customs and immigration staff are overworked because of late and early aircraft arriving at the same time.

Seems strange that you are not screened before you board & are placed in a confined environment, don't you think?

Webboe, I agree with you in this one. Excluding people with fevers from travelling might be the way to go. Can anyone make comments of the effectiveness of this and the infectious period of various diseases when there are no symptoms?

Did see something on what days of incubation [think they referred to it as] were before one would be infectious for about seven days I think was mentioned but that would be in an ideal situation I suppose if treated early enough which doesn't seem to have initially been the case in Mexico.

You'd think if you were dying of an infectious disease, you'd remain infectious, possibly even after death but that's one for the experts.

Interesting that initially deaths zoomed up to 100 and on to 150+ in a matter of days and now latest media reports are saying 29 - wonder who's right and if the latter is, who's responsible for promoting higher figures! - certainly upped global concern.

A woman has been reported succumbing in California but it also said she had underlying health problems - often the case with how flu can more take down the elderly or very young, weaker immune systems.

And then I heard one bit of news that also said something like 35,000 were dying yearly of the flu in the US - that's like 700/w and that also seems unbelievable unless they're going to count all those such as the California woman.

Scanning all travellers and not just flights sounds fine but doing it before boarding of international flights would require a heap of international co-operation and then once you have people congregating in airports or anywhere around transport terminals a contagious disease could be spread with people not initially showing symptons - ditto re scanning arrivees.

So suppose the thinking was if we're relatively clean to start with, try and keep it from coming in - basic principle of quarantine though does get varied for importing animals where medical examinations are required.

One does wonder how political it is too for Health Minister was being interviewed one night, not doing too well, flickpassing to going by what "experts" recommended and then within 24 hours the scanners were set up.