THIS IS THE ROLLING CORONAVIRUS STORY FOR MONDAY 30 MARCH 2020
Lock down tightened
15 day paid lock down from today for all not going to work for non-essential businesses in Spain. I guess you can still work from home in non-essential businesses. As long as you obey the lock down rules.
Also today is business shut down day. You can travel to work today in a non-essential business if you are taking steps to close it down today for the rest of the period.
Only 8 or 9 of the 15 days are normal working days due to Easter.
People cannot be sacked now in Spain.
Your business must pay you for this period. However you have to make the time up by working unpaid overtime later this year.
Here is a list of ESSENTIAL businesses:
https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020...t-from-tomorrows-toughened-lockdown-rules/amp
So, for example, no more non-essential construction work.
From bats to human lungs
A long read but well worth it.
https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/from-bats-to-human-lungs-the-evolution-of-a-coronavirus
Is factory farming responsible for coronavirus
Another good read. Farming methods play a part? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/28/is-factory-farming-to-blame-for-coronavirus?
A small good news story on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1626488097606001/permalink/2563330647255070/
Big brother is watching you in Spain?
The article is here:
https://www.abc.es/espana/abci-gobi...abc-es&vso=fb&vli=noticia-foto&ref=&ref=&ref=
The Government approves the surveillance of the movements of citizens with data from the operators
The BOE of this Saturday orders the creation of an application that allows this type of control over citizens
The National Statistics Institute (INE) will monitor the mobility of Spaniards "in the days before and during confinement" decreed by the state of alarm, based on movement data supplied by the telephone operators.
This is reflected in an order published this Saturday in the BOE, by which the Ministry of Health entrusts the Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, the development of various actions in the digital field and statistic for the management of the sanitary crisis.
These are measures that Vice President Nadia Calviño announced on March 23 and which are reflected in detail in the order published this Saturday by the Ministry of Health.
Cross "anonymized"
These measures include the preparation of a "mobility study" of the Spanish applied to the health crisis. It will be similar, and so the order says, to the one that the INE is doing about the population movement in general from data provided by the main ‘telecos’ and that generated controversy months ago due to doubts about the anonymity of those data.
As in that case, the order guarantees that the data crossing of the mobile operators must be done in an aggregated and “anonymised” way, respecting the Spanish and community legislation on data protection.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Health also orders the Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence in order to urgently develop a computer application to support the management of the health crisis caused by Covid-19.
It will be an app that will allow «the user to carry out a self-assessment, based on the medical symptoms that they report, about the probability of being infected by Covid-19, offer information to the user about Covid-19 and provide the user with practical advice and recommendations for actions to be taken according to the evaluation, ”states the provision.
The app will allow the geolocation of the user for the sole purpose of verifying that he is in the autonomous community in which he declares to be. The application may include within its content links to portals managed by third parties in order to facilitate access to information and services available through the Internet.
"The application will not constitute, in any case, a service for medical diagnosis, emergency care or prescription of pharmacological treatments," clarifies the order, "and will not replace in any case consultation with a duly qualified medical professional."
The person responsible for the treatment will be the Ministry of Health and the person in charge of the treatment and holder of the application will be the General Secretariat for Digital Administration.
Chatbot
Another measure included in the order is the development of "a conversational assistant / chatbot to be used by WhatsApp and other instant messaging applications, which will provide official information when asked by citizens."
The design will be based on official information from the Ministry of Health. The person in charge of the treatment will be the Ministry of Health and the person in charge of the treatment and owner of the chatbot will be the Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence through the General Sub-directorate of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Enabling Technologies.
Other tasks of the Government to the Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence are the development of "an informative website with the available technological resources" and the creation of "a central point of coordination for the evaluation of other technological proposals by other organizations and entities ».
In the text, it is specified that all citizens who use the future application arranged to check if they have symptoms may be geolocated, "for the sole purpose of verifying that you are in the autonomous community in which you say you are."
"The application will not constitute, in any case, a service for medical diagnosis, emergency care or prescription of pharmacological treatments. The use of the application will not replace in any case the consultation with a duly qualified medical professional », adds the BOE.
