The Region of Lombardy, in close collaboration of the National Department for Civil Protection the AllertaLOM mobile app, which collects information and data on the Civil Protection alerts and allows citizens to receive the latest information on the alert status of the territory.
Following the Coronavirus outbreak, the regional authorities produced a new update package on all Covid-related data and urged citizens to download the app and/or the software update to participate in the monitoring. AllertaLOM provides a dynamic view of the forecasts and alerts on the map, shows the evolution of the effects on the ground and allows users to customize the receipt of the notifications of an alert on the Municipality and on the risk of interest.
With the CERCACOVID update, users will be able to fill in an integrated questionnaire within the app which will make it possible to collect data, in an anonymized form, and make complete and structured information on the spread of the infection available to the Regional Crisis Unit and specialists.
This is the first step of the Lombardy Region CERCACOVID project, developed - through the digital company ARIA S.p.A - in collaboration with doctors and researchers from the San Matteo Hospital and the University of Pavia.
Thanks to this new data, it will be possible to make increasingly targeted choices in the management of the health emergency (e.g. to identify in advance the emergence of any new outbreaks) and to develop relevant statistical and epidemiological analysis.
The final goal is to combine the analysis of the data collected with other data available and to calculate the degree of risk of contagion, thus strengthening the safeguards for all citizens, symptomatic and asymptomatic.
The questionnaire is anonymous and is not addressed only to those who experience symptoms related to Covid-19, but to all citizens. Users are asked to repeat the questionnaire every day (no more than once a day), updating their health.
The information collected will contribute to feed a continuously updated "contagion risk map", which will allow experts to develop forecasting models on the contagion.
The aim is in fact to provide the Regional Crisis Management Unit with useful elements to locate the areas which are the most likely to host an active outbreak, or to identify the recovery of the infection in areas considered less at risk.