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Virus Watch: Understanding community incidence, symptom profiles, and transmission of COVID-19 in relation to population movement and behaviour
Safe People
University College London
Academic Institute
No
Safe Projects
DARS-NIC-372269-N8D7Z-v1.6
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has caused large numbers of deaths and impacted lives around the world with the closure of schools, workplaces, and limitations on our freedom of movement. Most current knowledge of the COVID-19 comes from observations at the more severe end of the disease in hospitalised patients. There is currently a lack of understanding of COVID-19 community incidence, symptom profile, severity, infectious period, risk factors, strength and duration of immunity, genetic differences in immune response, asymptomatic infection and viral shedding, household and community transmission risk and population behaviours during periods of wellness and illness (including social contact and movement and respiratory hygiene). This information can only be gathered accurately through large scale community studies. Virus Watch is one of the largest of such studies anywhere in the world and will help to inform NHS planning and the national public health response. Virus Watch is a household community cohort study. Approximately 42,500 participants will be recruited via a postal invitation or using social media platforms, and asked to fill out a baseline questionnaire, followed by weekly and monthly update questionnaires, all online. Information will be gathered on all members of participating households. There is concern about an increased risk of COVID19 infection and death among people who are from a black or minority ethnic or migrant group. Persons from black and minority ethnic (BAME), and some migrant groups will be oversampled. The approximate cohort size of 42,500 will consist of a targeted recruitment of 12,500 individuals from BAME groups and 30,000 from the general population. Persons from Poland will also be oversampled. This is because Poland is the most common European country of birth for people born abroad and resident in the UK, and the most common nationality in the UK after British according to the ONS. Polish is also the second most common language spoken in England according to the 2011 Census. The Polish population resident in Britain is therefore a sizable and important minority population that the researchers are interested in in terms of their risks of COVID19 infection. A subset of 10,000 participants will be recruited for swab and blood sampling to estimate the incidence of COVID-19 infections and development of antibody responses. Participants can also choose to submit geotracking data via their mobile phone. The data has been requested by University College London (UCL) who are acting as the sole data controller who is also acting as the sole data processor. The primary purpose of linking the Virus Watch questionnaire data to hospital and mortality data held by NHS Digital is to estimate population-based COVID-19 related hospital visits (accident and emergency attendances and admissions) and deaths, to address objective h). A secondary purpose of linkage to HES data is to examine how social distancing measures have affected routine use of health services (eg planned procedures and outpatient appointments), to address objective g). The primary purpose of linking VirusWatch to PHE Second Generation Surveillance System (SGSS) and National Pathology Exchange (NPEX)data is to identify any laboratory confirmed infections in the cohort (including individuals who are not part of the 10,000 participant-swabbing cohort), addressing objectives a) and i)-k). The VirusWatch study has multiple objectives: a) To measure the frequency of respiratory infection syndromes and related behaviours across the population of England & Wales. b) To compare the impact in different sociodemographic, occupational and ethnic groups c) To understand reasons underlying differential mortality impact in different ethnic groups d) To assess the impact of the pandemic control measures on different population groups e) To monitor population movement and assess the extent to which public contact increases the risk of infection, and social distancing measures decrease the risk. f) To assess uptake, compliance with and effectiveness of and impact of recommended COVID-19 control measures g) To assess the impact of social distancing on routine use of health services h) To measure the impact of infections on hospitalisations and deaths. i) To measure the incidence of PCR confirmable COVID 19 j) To measure COVID 19 clinical profiles (including the range of symptoms of COVID19 disease and the proportion of infections that are asymptomatic) k) To measure the proportion of the population infected after each wave of the pandemic l) To measure the protective effect of antibodies acquired through natural infection to seasonal and pandemic coronavirus. m) To assess the accuracy of finger prick blood tests for antibodies to COVID-19 for potential use in COVID-19 control and vaccine effectiveness studies. n) To measure the extent of pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic viral shedding in household contacts. o) To ensure availability of specimens to measure the protective effect of T and B cell responses and to assess the value of proteomic analysis in assessing vulnerability to severe infection. proposal The legal basis for processing personal data for this purpose data at UCL falls under Article 6(1)(e) of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), i.e. “a task carried out in the public interest”. It also falls under Article 9(2)(j), “processing is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes”. The processing of data for this study is a task of public interest as it will help with better understanding of the risk posed by COVID-19 such as likelihood of infection, likely symptoms, those at greatest risk of complications and the effect of risk factors such as social contact will help guide proportionate public responses and reinforce public health messaging. Due to the nature of this study and the urgent national call to set it up as soon as possible, UCL did not involve participants in its design. UCL have previously conducted Patient and Public Involvement to support similar community cohort studies of acute infections using similar methodologies. UCL have engaged the Young Persons' Advisory Group for research at Great Ormond Street Hospital to provide feedback on the Children's Participant Information Sheets. UCL will provide opportunities for survey participants to comment on survey methodology at the first monthly survey and consider revisions based on this. UCL will produce regular newsletters for survey participants.
Virus Watch will provide data relevant to a wide range of audiences involved in pandemic response. Summary data at national and regional level will be presented on open access dashboards so that it is available to all these audiences in a timely way. Audiences include- 1) THOSE PLANNING AND UNDERTAKING PUBLIC HEALTH MEASURES TO MINIMISE TRANSMISSION –Cutting-edge methods to measure contact with others (including time spent at home and work, in social venues, transport modes, conversational contact, household contact) and hand/respiratory hygiene – and determine how these change over time, affect risk of infection and are affected by illness. Development of technologies and pathways for remotely supporting self-testing and self-isolation. 2) THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR PLANNING THE NHS RESPONSE - Understanding of the number of people affected over time, the range of severity, health care seeking behaviour and the case hospitalisation and mortality ratios will allow better predictions of surges in NHS activity supporting measures such as triaging, cohorting, care outside hospital, cancelling routine activities etc. 3) THOSE PROVIDING FRONT LINE CARE –Improved case definitions by age, sex and ethnicity guiding targeting of diagnostics and contact tracing. 4) ACADEMIC GROUPS INVOLVED IN UNDERSTANDING THE PANDEMIC. Extensive data shared according to the principles of the Joint statement on sharing COVID-19 data. 5) THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND THE MEDIA. Better understanding of the risk posed by COVID-19 such as likelihood of infection, likely symptoms, those at greatest risk of complications and the effect of risk factors such as social contact will help guide proportionate public responses and reinforce public health messaging.
26/10/2020
Safe Data
Personally Identifiable
Health and Social Care Act 2012 – s261(2)(c)
Consent
Recurring
Safe Setting
TRE