An innovative and "data driven" method was developed at the Politecnico di Milano that demonstrates how it is possible to use geo-localized information relating to calls to the single emergency number (112) and to ambulance exits, in relation to problems associated with respiratory diseases, to monitor the evolution of COVID-19 in a given territory. The work, which just appeared in ISPRS International Journal of GeoInformation, took Lombardy into consideration by dividing it into districts of 100,000 inhabitants and, thanks to the collaboration with the Regional Emergency Emergency Agency (AREU) who provided the data, it was found that COVID-19 was most likely already widespread in Lombardy well before the identification of the first patient on 21 February.

Based on these results, we are now studying how to provide a specific alert indication for a given territory, based on the trend of the previous days, so as to be able to alert the competent authorities in relation to geographically localized situations that may require particular attention. The study was born as part of an inter-doctoral fellowship in Biomedical Engineering funded by the Politecnico and awarded to Eng. Lorenzo Gianquintieri, in collaboration between the team of Prof. Enrico Caiani of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering and of Prof. Maria Brovelli of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the same University.

Link to the article "Mapping spatiotemporal diffusion of COVID-19 in Lombardy (Italy) on the base of Emergency Medical Services activities": https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/11/639/htm