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The fear of the increase in infections and the appeals of the institutions and the media drive the downloads of Immuni. The coronavirus infection tracker app has been downloaded by more than 7 million Italians, a jump of 350,000 in the last three days. While the government’s awareness campaign begins to activate the application, which from the middle of this month will communicate with its counterparts in Europe. “Download the Immuni application. Help us keep the pressure on hospitals down. Help us guarantee treatment even for patients who do not have Covid-19,” is the appeal launched today by the national union of hospital doctors Anaao-Assomed. In recent days, Walter Ricciardi, advisor to the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza, stressed that “if the majority of the population downloads Immuni, we would have an extraordinary tool to bring the epidemic under control.”
The application, launched throughout Italy in June, is free and voluntary and works with bluetooth, which guarantees anonymity. After a debut with 500,000 downloads in the first day and two million in a week, it took three solid months to grow. To date, 7,036,898 citizens have activated it on their smartphones, approximately 18% of devices in Italy, a percentage of which children under 14 are excluded.
So far, the app has sent 5,870 notifications, while 357 positive users have uploaded their codes, allowing it to notify people who have contacted them. The data, updated to October 4, are published on the official website of Immuni, the Ministry of Technological Innovation and the Ministry of Health. “It is a moral obligation to download it,” Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in recent days, launching the awareness campaign to download Immuni. While almost all newspapers, print and online, mobilized during the weekend reserving a space for the application.
Therefore, as of October 17, Immuni will begin to dialogue with its European counterparts. One more tool for tracking infections at a time when the virus is also running in other countries. Italy, Germany and Ireland will be the first to let their apps do the talking. In the Union there are a total of 15 countries that have adopted or are about to adopt a tracking application, the average number of downloads is 10%. A percentage that is far from the 60% target for the system to be effective in containing the pandemic.
