CREEDE- According to a report from the Creede School District, the school will be using a new smart app to help parents determine their child’s health before they even leave their home and head to school. The new application is through the company WeeCare that has created a symptom checker called Fever Free.

According to the product’s description, “Fever Free stops symptomatic individuals from ever arriving at their location and helps to stop the spread of sickness and keep our community safe. Fever Free is easy to use and takes less than 30 seconds each day. Fever Free allows for individuals to conduct their required health checks before leaving the house each morning, minimizing the risk of exposure from in-person checks and ensuring complete privacy. Fever Free is the only technology available that is fully compliant, secure and accurate. Fever Free does not rely on self-report.”

The Creede School District has been checking symptoms of students before they enter the school per their district’s COVID response plan but decided to be even more cautious by implementing a way for parents, teachers and staff could monitor their symptoms from their homes. This minimizes the chances of exposure and the safety of everyone at the Creede School.

“We have been checking symptoms at three entrances to the school in the mornings but it started getting cold and it is kind of time consuming,” said school Receptionist Kelsey Evans who helped implement the Fever Free app. “It also eliminates any misunderstanding for parents when they check their own student’s symptoms. It just adds that additional layer of accountability.”

Mineral County remains at zero active cases as of Tuesday, Nov. 10, and the school has not seen any cases so far this year. The WeeCare company also helped with costs associated with using the app and the Creede School District is willing to share information as well as feedback on the app to any other schools that may be interested in using the Fever Free Application.

The app basically uses the selfie camera on a smartphone, computer or other smart device and takes a short video of the person taking their temperature on a digital thermometer. The artificial intelligence of the application uses the video to identify the person, read the digital reading of the thermometer and issues a pass, fail or resubmit result for the symptom check.

The school stated that they have issued the application to teachers and staff this week and hope to have it ready for families soon. For more information about the Fever Free application please visit www.weecare.co/fever-free