Updates

Publication: How many are at increased risk of severe COVID-19 disease?

Rosalind Eggo, HDR UK Fellow at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has co-authored a pre-print with colleagues that aims to model the number of people at increased risk of being severely impacted by COVID-19. The study includes global, regional and national estimates. As a pre-print, it has not yet been peer reviewed, but has been made available for open access on GitHub.

View the paper here

Blog: COVID-19 testing strategy – why random sampling matters

Professor Peter Diggle, Director of HDR UK & Turing Wellcome PhD Programme in Health Data Science provided this week’s blog outlining why random sampling of COVID-19 testing is important to estimate prevalence of the disease across the whole population.

Read Peter’s blog

Project: Scaling up COVID-19 antibody testing: supporting robust and reliable data

A team led by Phil Quinlan (HDR UK Midlands) at the UKCRC Tissue Directory and Coordination Centre, an Alliance Member, is examining how to support the scale-up of COVID-19 testing by making sure that the data provided on the confirmed state of COVID-19 diagnosis and antibody level is robust and reliable. They are identifying the necessary kit and sample needs to ensure tests are validated on good quality samples and in sufficient numbers. Currently, the team is supporting the validation of Public Health England’s antibody test by seeking to identify tissue samples that can enable insight into the testing.
Read more about the UKCRC Tissue Directory and Coordination Centre


Case studies

We have now published a number of case studies outlining some of our priority projects. See the full list of HDR UK priority projects or visit our COVID-19 page for more information on the work that the community is doing to help tackle the pandemic.

Data-driven clinical trial to find a treatment for COVID-19 (RECOVERY trial)

Read this case study

Collecting COVID-19 data and samples in a way that enables global research (ISARIC-CCP project)

Read this case study

Understanding how blood samples can reveal causes and indicators of susceptibility to COVID-19 (National Cohorts Consortium)

Read this case study

Examining the DNA of the COVID-19 virus to find ways to tackle it (COG-UK project)

Read the case study 

Analysis of text written by doctors in medical notes of patients with COVID-19 (National Text Analytics project – ACE inhibitors)

Read the case study 


More information and tools

  1. HDR UK GitHub repository–The HDR UK community is developing computer-based tools and methodologies to analyse and handle health data, including those that can help overcome the COVID-19 challenge. These are all shared in a central repository, which is open to the public, so that we can all learn from each other and build on each other’s work. They are shared in HDR UK’s area of GitHub.
  2. COVID-19 slack channel – researcher and innovators looking to collaborate to use health data to address the pandemic can apply to join our dedicated slack channel. Complete the form to register your interest in joining here.
  3. Take a look at our Skills + Knowledge Matchmaker to see a full list of COVID-10 project ongoing, or visit COVID-19 pageto see the latest version of HDR UK’s strategy to support efforts to tackle the pandemic