Covid-19

The contribution analyzes some critical issues in the procedures for entrusting the implementation of telematic booking systems for anti covid-19 vaccines. In particular, the Author emphasizes how the assignment to in-house companies has been unsuccessful. The Author also criticizes the choice of not reusing software solutions already developed for other public administrations. The comment concludes suggesting that the health emergency in progress should rather have led to make the best of the support that private operators could provide.

The Draghi government has taken office at a time when the labour market, characterised by the decisive influence of information technologies and a high degree of mobility, is undergoing great changes. The emergence of the pandemic, which had been underway for almost a year when the Draghi government was sworn in, has hit the labour market with the destruction of jobs and the failure to create new ones, while at the same time accentuating the disruptive processes underway (IT, mobility). The phenomenon is supranational, and the European Union is acting on two levels: facing up to the emergency (SURE, Youth initiative, EU Next Generation, etc.) and intervening on the basis of a strategy focused on investment in information technologies. It is these technologies which are changing production processes and how trades and professions are carried out, reshaping the labour market while making it necessary for workers to upskill and have IT profiles and creating a strong asymmetry between workers and their employment prospects. The Premier’s speech and the government’s programme are taking this problem into account: on the one hand, they have announced reforms of the assegno di riallocazione reallocation allowance and of job centres, on the other hand, they are talking about strengthening infrastructure (broadband, 5G) and the transversality of the Digital Transition. All of which seems appropriate. The hope is that all this will be done in the European strategic context and that the employment market becomes the omnipresent pivot of the transversal transition.

The essential points of the reasoning developed in this article are: Covid-19 has brought to the fore the role played by the administration as a bridge in the (conflictual) confrontation between the power of science and political power; the health emergency has cast light on the importance of the functioning of parliamentary institutions for the defence of democracy because the executive branch (objectively) gets the upper hand. The administration of the European Parliament is a very interesting case study in this respect because it has succeeded in coping with the emergency thanks to several factors; EPA implemented a programme of structural digitisation of the European Parliament in recent years. Finally, EPA worked for activating an administrative capacity to manage the “unprecedented measures” that had to be adopted: this capacity was achieved by carrying out the actions within the strict framework of the governance of the European Parliament and under its permanent scrutiny.

The Covid-19 pandemic has provoked both in Italy and in Germany wide debates among scientists, scholars of multiple disciplines and public opinion. Of course, politics has played a fundamental role in the management of the health emergency: in Italy, “collective” health has been protected through the adoption of a very wide range of regulatory acts of different nature, not always suitable to guarantee a unitary protection. In Germany, the emergency crisis has been (more) successfully managed, with the sole exception of some problems that have emerged in the coordination between the Bund and Länder in the fight against the virus. This work will analyse, from a comparative point of view, the relationship between the legislative power and science in defining policies to combat the health emergency, focusing on the impact of such policies on the academic context.

In the summer term of 2020, teaching at German universities was shifted to the digital space. In the winter term 2020/21, distance learning will continue at many universities, at least in part, especially for courses with a high number of participants. It is questionable to what extent compulsory digital teaching will interfere with the freedom of teaching and whether digital teaching can be demanded by the faculty management in accordance with fundamental rights in the exceptional situation caused by the pandemic and beyond the crisis.

In light of the numerous restrictive measures adopted in Italy, as in many other countries, to contain the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, the authors examine the terms with which the use of the “App Immuni” could be qualified as a legitimate condition for carrying out activities at risk of infection. Digital contact tracing could give greater effectiveness to the measures taken to contain the epidemic and, therefore, lead to a better calibration of the limitations to personal freedoms. In this perspective, the authors’ attention is focused on analyzing the functioning of the app Immuni, especially in view of protecting personal data and in light of the analysis of the relevant European standards, also analyzed through the prism of the principle of proportionality.

The article outlines the exemptions made by d. 18/2020 (Measures to strengthen the National Health Service and economic support for families, workers and businesses related to the epidemiological emergency by COVID-19) to the legal architecture of the responsibilities of principal actors behind clinical trials of drugs for compassionate use in the wake of the establishment of a Unique National Ethics Committee and the devising of new expertise in charge of AIFA. While waiting for the vaccine, the compassionate use of drugs, as we will see, is at present almost the only viable path of health activities around the world against SARS-Cov-2 which can be credited with creating an unprecedented 'scientific relevance' by the world scientific community.

With decision n. 466 of 17 September 2020, the first section of Tar Piedmont rejected the request for cancellation, subject to suspension of effectiveness, presented against the decree of the President of the Council of the Piedmont Region, no. 95 of 9 September 2020, with which the obligation for schools to verify that families measured the body temperature of students before the start of teaching was established.

On 8 April 2020, the EU Commission published a Recommendation on the principles to be followed in drawing up the guidelines to be used in the development of the new digital technologies that are emerging in the different Member States to counter the Covid-19 emergency ("toolbox").

This paper analyses the decree n. 1135 of 8 June 2020, through which the Campania Regional Administrative Court, section V, has precautionary upheld the request to suspend the effectiveness of the ordinances n. 248 of 29 May 2020 and n. 249 of 04 June 2020 of the Mayor of Naples. The two ordinances determined, on the one hand, a derogating discipline regarding the opening hours of retail establishments, already subjected to regional regulation, and on the other hand, an extension in terms of concessions for the temporary occupation of public land, which, instead, are disciplined by the municipal regulation "Dehors".