Story of a Friday in the company of an Immuni notification

The app worked. While it is the system after that leaves something to be desired. When the data would be useful to keep the spread of the coronavirus under control

The first layouts of Immuni, the app for contact tracing in Italy (source: Bending Spoons / Ministry of Innovation) The notification arrives while we sip a coffee afterwards lunch. Or rather, it almost seems like we're going to look for it. Because, playing with his mobile phone, my husband Giorgio opens the Immuni app and, drum roll, the fateful red band appears: contact at risk (and we already wonder what would have happened if we hadn't opened it, below in the images what appears). "Risk exposure detected with a positive Covid-19 person", reads the message. The contact dates back to last Friday, October 9th. The memory goes back to that day, Giorgio isolates some relevant moments, then, following the advice of the app, he contacts the general practitioner.

What happens when a notification from Immuni arrives. ), asks when the contact at risk dates back (a week ago), prescribes fiduciary isolation (but of 10 days and not 14, as stated in the vademecum on Immuni, due to the recent indications of the technical-scientific committee) and mark the name in the portal of the territorial health company (Ats). Then, in conclusion, he says: “Without symptoms nothing will happen, they do not swab.”

So, on balance, what to do? Only isolation until next Monday. A few days afterwards, and then? Here Ats Milano speaks: since the reports from Immuni are equated to close contacts, or 10 days of isolation plus buffer (but without a preferential lane and in fact entrusted to the good will of the citizen) or the isolation is extended up to 14 days and not you have symptoms, from the fifteenth day, all free without tests.

What Happens When You Get An Immune And Three T's Notification?

I can say without fear of denial that I was one of the journalists who closely followed the issue of Immuni's development in Italy, so I didn't expect a robotic arm with an integrated buffer to come out of the app, nor that on our house a flashing arrow was lit with the words “Possible plague“. Immuni is the link in a chain made up of three T's: trace, test, treat, to use a down to earth translation. First reconstruct the chain of contacts potentially at risk, then check who is positive for the coronavirus, finally, if necessary, intervene (isolations, hospitalizations, etc.). Well oiled machine should work like this. It has been repeated since March.

Yet that in October, in the midst of a second wave that all experts expected, in one of the regions with the most cases, Lombardy, the contact tracing chain is interrupted thus it gives the impression that those in charge have not yet learned the 3T rule. Of course, Giorgio's name is now on the ATS servers and maybe he will receive a control call in the next few hours (if it happens, I'll update this piece), but the feeling is that everything is left to the good will of the citizen. Amen. Again, I do not expect the Immune package to include a traffic policeman who checks the respect of isolation (Giorgio's, because I am a ghost for ATS) 24 hours a day, nor do I hope so. But there is a big difference between the arming and leaving and the troupe of Barbara D’Urso chasing the pedestrian in full lockdown from the helicopter of the Guardia di Finanza. A difference based on planning, organization, dialogue with the citizen.

What happens when you receive an Immuni notification

"Leave Immuni alone"

Everyone points to Immuni, when it is the only which worked (thanks to the good will of those who downloaded it). He recorded the contact at risk (and he could not do it before the test carried out by the person who tested positive), shared the result (again thanks to the good will of the citizen, who downloaded the app and made good use of it), warned close subjects respecting privacy (we do not know who it is, as far as we can trace the context). But Immuni, although it has been baptized with a thaumaturgical name, is not the Elder Wand or the Infinity Gauntlet or a miraculous relic of Brother Cipolla. Its job stops where the next T. begins.

What happens when an Immuni notification arrives In these days we have discovered that Immuni is not operational in Veneto. And that in Liguria the former challenger for the position of president of the region, Ferruccio Sansa, has been told that the local ATS does not know what to do with it. So with Immuni (a tip: download it, if you can, for the good of all) we are collecting data to leave it to languish in some server of Sogei (which with all due respect, is not the Copacabana beach), instead of making it fruitful. And knowing full well, as a research group at the University of Pavia has shown some time, that even Google searches can help identify trends in infections.

What happens when an Immuni notification arrives

The value of data

“Data is the new oil” goes a very bad expression. But, forgive me Greta Thunberg as I write this, either you refine them and feed us an engine or they are of little use. Again, not because Immuni doesn't work, but because the apparatus behind it doesn't work, as Vitalba Azzolini warned about Phastidio at the end of April. A device that monitors all the data provided by the app (actually donated by Apple, Google and Bending Spoons) to get the pulse of the situation, which has a standard and univocal procedure throughout the national territory, which responds quickly . I understand well, for example, that when faced with a case that does not show symptoms, one does not immediately play the tampon. Resources should be directed above all to those who need them most. But how do we make sure we don't leave an asymptomatic for a walk? After hours of research, I still haven't figured it out.

What happens when you receive an Immune notification Liability is appealed. True, it does not come out without collective responsibility: I make a renunciation for the good of others. But at the basis of this pact, citizen-society, citizen-state, there is trust. Not really a good thing that abounds these days, especially towards the Italian state and its multiple ramifications. And what little is left is not to be wasted. Just as no time should be wasted, given that in just two weeks the virus brought the calendar back to early March. With all the distinctions of the case, ça va sans dire, but still with stringent preventive measures in sight. Again there is the app, for example. But which is called Immuni, not Superman.