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TECHNOLOGY

Coronavirus: Italian government reveals plans to use tracking app

Italy has announced the first details of its plan to use an app to trace coronavirus infections, as it looks at easing its two-month lockdown in early May.

Published: 17 April 2020 14:41 CEST
Coronavirus: Italian government reveals plans to use tracking app
A man checks his phone next a sign praising healthcare workers in

Coronavirus commissioner Domenico Arcuri signed a decree late on Thursday awarding the Mediterranean country's contract to a Milan-based startup called Bending Spoons.

The app, named Immuni, was chosen from over 300 proposals sent to the Ministry of Innovation, reports Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore.

The European Union recommended smartphone tracking apps as part of a roadmap unveiled on Wednesday to help countries ease restrictions that have prompted steep economic downturns across the bloc.

READ ALSO: When will Italy's lockdown 'phase two' begin and what will it involve?

The italian app is based on bluetooth, in accordance with the EU's recommendations against using geolocation. It stated that all apps used for this purpose should be used anonymously and voluntarily.

Arcuri's decree in turn states that the free app must preserve users' anonymity and not track location. Instead, it will use bluetooth to log the phone's movements.

The plan is to test the app in pilot regions and then expand it nationally. No timeframes were disclosed.

Italy's announcement came a week after Apple and Google revealed plans to develop a contact-tracing app.

Their initiative would allow apps on phones using rival Apple and Google-backed Android software to exchange information.

Arcuri's decree did not mention that project.

Countries such as South Korea and Israel have used apps to help people determine whether they came close to someone infected with the virus.

Technology experts warn the such apps are not foolproof since bluetooth signals works best in open spaces can be dropped in walled-off offices and restaurants.

Italy has officially recorded 22,170 deaths from the virus, and is now looking to gradually lift its restrictions from May 4.

 

 

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HEALTH

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

As Italy’s new school year began, masks and hand sanitiser were distributed in schools and staff were asked to prevent gatherings to help stem an increase in Covid infections.

Published: 11 September 2023 12:48 CEST
Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

Pupils returned to school in many parts of Italy on Monday and authorities said they were distributing masks and hand sanitiser amid a post-summer increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid–19.

“The advice coming from principals, teachers and janitors is to avoid gatherings of students, especially in these first days of school,” Mario Rusconi, head of Italy’s Principals’ Association, told Rai news on Monday.

He added that local authorities in many areas were distributing masks and hand sanitizer to schools who had requested them.

“The use of personal protective equipment is recommended for teachers and students who are vulnerable,” he said, confirming that “use is not mandatory.”

A previous requirement for students to wear masks in the classroom was scrapped at the beginning of the last academic year.

Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS), told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper on Monday that the return to school brings the risk of increased Covid infections.

Ricciardi described the health ministry’s current guidelines for schools as “insufficient” and said they were “based on politics rather than scientific criteria.”

READ ALSO:

Recorded cases of Covid have increased in most Italian regions over the past three weeks, along with rates of hospitalisation and admittance to intensive care, as much of the country returns to school and work following the summer holidays.

Altogether, Italy recorded 21,309 new cases in the last week, an increase of 44 percent compared to the 14,863 seen the week before.

While the World Health Organisation said in May that Covid was no longer a “global health emergency,” and doctors say currently circulating strains of the virus in Italy are not a cause for alarm, there are concerns about the impact on elderly and clinically vulnerable people with Italy’s autumn Covid booster campaign yet to begin.

“We have new variants that we are monitoring but none seem more worrying than usual,” stated Fabrizio Maggi, director of the Virology and Biosafety Laboratories Unit of the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome

He said “vaccination coverage and hybrid immunity can only translate into a milder disease in young and healthy people,” but added that “vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable continues to be important.”

Updated vaccines protecting against both flu and Covid are expected to arrive in Italy at the beginning of October, and the vaccination campaign will begin at the end of October, Rai reported.

Amid the increase in new cases, Italy’s health ministry last week issued a circular mandating Covid testing on arrival at hospital for patients with symptoms.

Find more information about Italy’s current Covid-19 situation and vaccination campaign on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

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