COVID 2019 Armenia: Special online tool launched to identify potential risks

The Armenian government has launched a special digital tool to identify the potential risk groups of the coronavirus disease in an effort to contain the spread of the infection at maximum rapid paces.

The online application targets suspected cases by spotting users who had contact with infected individuals, says an advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan, the government's special commandant coordinating the epidemic-related emergency measures.

"Individuals who turn out to have had contact with a sick person are self-isolated. Periodic data collection is later carried out to identify the patient's condition, including the need for food supplies.  That procedure, upon necessity, is arranged through the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs," Bagrat Badalyan told reporters at the Government Press Center.

He aded that they also periodically send messages to self-isolated people to make sure that they respect the quarantine rules. "The individuals placed on lockdown respond to the messages concerning their health and then make a selfie to give us knowledge that they are really in self-isolation. Location data are collected in the meantime to ensure that they have not left the self-isolation area. We conduct surveillance of the self-isolation site to give the police reports whenever a citizen deserts the place. The police, in turn, send the corresponding subdivisions to the assigned address to find out whether there was a technical problem or the person has really deserted the site," he explained.

Badalyan added that a violation of the norm entails an administrative fine, with the repeated infringement of the self-isolation norms allowing the police to detain the individual n an isolation ward.

COVID 2019 Armenia,  an application developed by Armenian software specialists, has been downloaded 40,000 times, allowing users to conduct 240,000 online testings, the advisor said, adding an estimated 1,500 subscribers repeatedly appeared in the "red zone". A subsequent testing of 12 people selected from among 31 spotted contacts (through an interview) has revealed four positive cases.