Medical thermometer accuracy
In this current blog post, I am discussing a chronic shortage of thermometers, and many of them may be inaccurate, as I pointed out in my article on thermometer calibration.
Many cheap digital thermometers are only accurate to ±2°C, and in some cases can be worse than that. Even high-quality branded thermometers which are from pharmacies and hospitals can be inaccurate. If you get a high temperature reading and worry that you may be sick, only to find out that the thermometer was reading high!
We have an infrared thermometer. This cost me $15 some years ago (currently they cost a minimum of $80) and I checked it on the calibrator as being accurate to within ±0.5°C. We had pointed a medical thermometer at our foreheads, and we have been checking ourselves every day, even though we know we are well. My body temperatures readings vary quite a bit, depending on the time of day and whether we have recently eaten.
Now I have a baseline for my own healthy temperature, so if we do contract the dreaded virus and our temperature increases, we will know instantly that we are in trouble.
There are many people in this world who worry a lot about their health (especially in the current environment) so I can only stress that you need to set your baseline when you are healthy. There is no problem if you are using the same thermometer at all times when you are checking your body temperature as this way you will be comfortable with one thermometer and its readings.
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