Category: Health Emergency

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COVID-19: social disorder is gaining momentum in Italy

Like a health infection, the public disorder should be stopped as soon as the first hints of antisocial behaviour appear. Failing to do so means to let a social pandemics to grow undetected until strong police – and possibly, military – crackdown will be the only (non)solution to restore the “peace of the land”.

There have been several warning tales in the last weeks. In Palermo (Sicily) a mob of twenty people assaulted a supermarket), in Bari (Puglie) criminals robbed a food transport, in Pescara (Abruzzi) a young homeless assaulted a 63-year old lady and stole her shopping bag and in Milan (Lombardy) food-delivery raiders are victims of assaults and theft of the merchandise they carry. Furtherly, media reported an increase of COVID-19-related scams and swindles). Still, the Government is doing nothing but “issue warning”. Continue reading “COVID-19: social disorder is gaining momentum in Italy”

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COVID-19 and morbidity in professional information in Italy

The management of an emergency relies upon hope because hope is what drives people not to “give up”. It is, therefore, essential to intervene on the unscrupulous behaviour of those media which, with the excuse of “inform”, foment anxiety and confusion.

Fake news aside, which by now like bacteria have permanently installed themselves in the body of social networks, the negative role embodied by “professional” information and entertainment is becoming increasingly apparent.

Despite the invitation – that nothing more than this could be – of the Communications Authority to talk about COVID-19 using authoritative sources there is a proliferation of television broadcasts providing unreliable data or feeding debates whose only purpose is to raise controversy. Continue reading “COVID-19 and morbidity in professional information in Italy”

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COVID-19: destroying (or failing to collect) geolocalization data of the infected people harms Science

In Italy, a “snobbish” conception of the right to privacy and the protection of personal data are about to cause a sensational mistake in the fight against COVID-19: that of destroying (or not collecting) the geolocation data of infected subjects.

The right to privacy can certainly be limited for higher interests, as was the case with freedom of expression, freedom of movement and public gathering and economic freedom. Moreover, the GDPR, if applicable in an emergency regime, would impose nonetheless to protect ALL fundamental rights and freedoms, therefore, life first, and not only “privacy”. Continue reading “COVID-19: destroying (or failing to collect) geolocalization data of the infected people harms Science”

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COVID-19: who is afraid of patients’ geolocalization?

“Experts” and public institutions are reluctant to use of geolocation data held by mobile phone operators to backtrack COVID-19 infected people. The reason is that as “the cell-phone mesh is too wide” and GPS is not precise, the data obtained would be unreliable. This fact, according to them, would justify the use of other instruments – and in particular, of “apps” – to be installed more or less mandatory on people’s smartphones.

It is unclear if these “experts” considered that not everyone could or wants to have a “smart” phone. Therefore, more than a few could go around with an old “stupid” but less intrusive mobile phone affecting the overall efficiency of the solution. Continue reading “COVID-19: who is afraid of patients’ geolocalization?”

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COVID-19: from Italy a (bad) lesson on public order

As I have written since the beginning of the COVID-19 emergency, the management of public order and security is just as important as the health aspects. It is essential to prevent the pressure on citizens from quarantine, fear of the economic consequences of the crisis and the obsessive hammering of random numbers in the media from triggering riots.

The first signs sparkled at the beginning of the crisis with the frantic race to hoard food and foodstuffs. Now the “quantum leap” is the direct and group assault on supermarkets openly organized via social networks happened in Palermo, Sicily. Continue reading “COVID-19: from Italy a (bad) lesson on public order”