-46 all actors of the absolute prohibition of torture and ill-treatment and advised all monitoring bodies to “take every precaution to observe the ‘do no harm’ principle, in particular when dealing with older persons, and persons with pre-existing medical conditions”. Regarding the specific use of solitary confinement, the CPT states in principle 8 that “in cases of isolation or placement in quarantine of a detained person who is infected or is suspected of being infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the person concerned should be provided with meaningful human contact every day”. More recently, in a Follow-up statement137, the Council for Penological Co-operation Working Group pointed out that because of the negative impact of solitary confinement “such confinement for sanitary and safety reasons should be coupled with counterbalancing activities, such as increased number of free-of-charge phone calls, books and other reading material, TV and other media, in-cell educational, training and recreational activities and others. Such periods of solitary confinement should be ended immediately with the end of the reason for their imposition”. 4.2. Preparation of the visit Specific monitoring of solitary confinement requires the widest possible collection of information prior to the visit. For some NPMs, preliminary data analysis is easier than for others. The Italian NPM for example, has direct access to the centralized system of the penitentiary administration where data from all the penitentiary institutes are centrally recorded. Thus for this NPM it is easy to examine the number of disciplinary measures currently in progress and those issued in the past, their duration and the internal placement of prisoners (i.e. the type of regimes and sections and the number of people accommodated within them), the number of critical events that occurred before the visit and their type. When NPMs do not have direct access to these data, they can request them. This is usually the case for the French NPM, which requests them by email prior to the visit. The Danish NPM in the weeks before each visit, requires the pandemic, 20 March 2020, available at: https://rm.coe.int/16809cfa4b In July the CPT issued a Follow-up statement regarding the situation of persons deprived of their liberty in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, available here: https://rm.coe.int/16809ef566 137. Council for Penological Co-operation Working Group, Follow-up Covid-19 related statement by the Council for Penological Co-operation Working Group, 14 October 2020, available at: https://rm.coe.int/ pc-cp-2020-10-e-rev-follow-up-to-pc-cp-wg-statement-covid-19/16809ff484