Tommy — the robot nurse — is part of a six-member team helping flesh-and-blood doctors and nurses care for coronavirus patients at the Circolo Hospital in Varese, a city in the northern Lombardy region that is the epicentre of the outbreak in Italy.

“It’s like having another nurse without problems related to infection,” said Doctor Francesco Dentali, director of intensive care at the hospital.

The child-size robots with large blinking eyes are wheeled into rooms and left by a patient’s bedside so doctors can look after others who are in more serious conditions. They monitor parameters from equipment in the room, relaying them to hospital staff.

Read more here.