HDR UK weekly COVID-19 round-up
Our weekly updates highlight the range of projects members of the HDR UK community are working on to address the COVID-19 pandemic and global challenge. Read on to find out about the latest projects and areas of work.
Update
Dexamethasone reduces death by up to one third in hospitalised patients with severe respiratory complications of COVID-19
The RECOVERY clinical trial, led by Martin Landray (HDR UK Research Director) and Peter Horby has asserted that dexamethasone has shown sufficient meaningful benefit to COVID-19 patients. Dexamethasone reduced deaths by one third in ventilated patients and by one fifth in other patients receiving oxygen only. Congratulations to all those involved. Further information is below.
Modelling study estimates number of global, regional and national population at increased risk of severe COVID-19 due to underlying health conditions
A modelling study, undertaken by researchers including HDR UK members, has looked at how the number of individuals at increased risk of COVID-19 varies between countries. This has led to estimations that 1.7 billion people (22%) of the global population have at least one underlying health condition which would make them at increased risk of severe COVID-19 if they were to become infected.
Evaluation of National Early Warning Score (NEWS2) for COVID-19 published as pre-print
The National Early Warning Score (NEWS2) project is currently recommended in the UK for risk-stratification of severe COVID-19 outcomes within hospitals. The evaluation concluded that adding age and a minimal set of blood parameters to NEWS2 improves the detection of patients likely to develop severe COVID-19 outcomes.
Coronagenes study looking for DNA home test data
A study from researchers at Edinburgh University are looking for volunteers to submit their DNA home test kit data in order to find out why some people get sick and some don’t with regards to COVID-19. You can sign up using the link below.
‘Health Data Science in the COVID-19 Era’ – HDR UK’s One Institute Conference
Tuesday 16 June saw over 900 people from across the health data science community both nationally and internationally take part in our One Institute conference. You can check out our speaker lists and watch Patrick Vallance’s opening plenary on our website page here and other breakout session recordings will be available soon.
It was a fantastic event; thank you to all who attended!
Tweet of the week
This weeks tweet of the week came from Chair of our Public Advisory Board, Angela Coulter, who discussed the below as potential silver linings to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are seeing more of a discussion around health data and a more evident willingness to undertake team sciece as a result. This quotation is from ‘Health Data Science in the COVID-19 Era’ HDR UK’s One Institute Conference on 16 June.
More information and tools
1. Submit your research question or project – we are calling on anyone with a research question for COVID-19 that requires health data to share your ideas via our online form.
Questions will be shared in our HDR UK COVID-19 Knowledge + Skills Matchmaker. We prioritise all of the questions using a transparent and objective process to identify the questions that most urgently need to access to data. Progress of the prioritised questions is reported weekly to the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).
2. 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
3. COVID-19 Slack channels – researchers and innovators looking to collaborate to use health data to address the pandemic can apply to join our dedicated Slack channels. Complete the form to register your interest in joining here.
4. Take a look at our Skills + Knowledge Matchmaker to see a full list of COVID-19 ongoing projects, or visit COVID-19 page to see the latest version of HDR UK’s strategy to support efforts to tackle the pandemic.
