Epidemic intelligence to minimize 2019-nCoV’s public health, economic and social impact in Europe

Project Information

EpiPose

Grant agreement ID: 101003688

DOI

10.3030/101003688

Project closed

EC signature date 8 April 2020

Start date 13 March 2020

End date 12 April 2023

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Health, demographic change and well-being

Total cost

€ 4 548 391,25

EU contribution

€ 4 548 391,25

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITEIT HASSELT
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - EpiPose (Epidemic intelligence to minimize 2019-nCoV’s public health, economic and social impact in Europe)

Reporting period: 2022-03-13 to 2023-04-12

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Objectives:
1 collect and share epidemiological data of COVID-19 as widely as possible
2 provide country-specific estimates of key epidemiological parameters
3 model the expected impact of COVID-19 on morbidity and mortality
4 estimate the burden imposed on health care resources, such as hospital beds in the EU
5 monitor awareness and behavioural change during the COVID-19 epidemic
6 investigate the impact of changing public health interventions on behaviour and therefore transmission dynamics
7 estimate the macroeconomic impact of the outbreak, as well as of potential interventions to mitigate and control it
8 estimate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical interventions if and when these become available within the EU
9 foster the interaction between the scientific community, public health agencies and the public
Conclusion:
* facilitated an increase in social and behavioral insights and preparedness through extensive data collection and analysis, essential in assessing the efficiency of interventions, public health and how people adhere to and cope with them
* assessed key epidemiological parameters, as further input for modelling efforts. Through the development of robust statistical and mathematical models for epidemic nowcasting and forecasting, we have evaluated the impact of the pandemic and changes due to intervention measures.
* established realtime health care pressure evaluation and monitored disease burden, impact of the epidemic and intervention strategies on finances, economy and healthcare

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

1: gained access to disaggregated data on incidence, hospital admissions, contact tracing etc. and to (sero-)surveillance; whenever possible, data was shared as open data or as part of data visualization dashboards
2: estimation of key epidemiological parameters (incubation/generation time, basic reproduction number, proportion of pre-symptomatic infections, IFR, hospital capacity, mortality) and on robust methods to deal with various sources of error/bias. Real-time estimates of Re have been made available via online dashboards.
3: real-time modelling has provided national authorities with regular updates to projections of morbidity and mortality under different intervention scenarios; assessed excess mortality using a model that forecasts subject-specific mortality using historical data
4: set up realtime health care pressure evaluation methods and tools, https://www.covid-hcpressure.org/home/; incorporation of QoL measurements in citizen science initiatives: the Great Corona Study, Influenzanet; developed mathematical models to evaluate the effect of different scenarios of control & relaxation strategies on hospital and ICU burden
5: collected social contact and risk perception data through the CoMix survey in >20 countries, yielding several publications, Comix reports were used directly for policy advice in several countries; analysed the relationship between media coverage, epidemic progression, and users’ collective web-based response; gained access to data from the Great Corona Survey
6: worked on the impact of NPIs (teleworking, school closure, social distancing, restricted social contacts (‘bubbles’), travel restrictions) and of testing policies, antivirals, and different vaccination strategies on mitigating local epidemics using mathematical and statistical models and CoMix data
7: populated a database of macroeconomic parameters of 27 EU countries that can be used as inputs for CGE models, applied the CGE model to UK data
8: performed an economic analysis of COVID-19 vaccination in the UK and collaborated with other consortia to investigate affordability, funding and pricing of vaccines in the context of global accessibility, also vaccine roll-out and its effect on the general economic equilibrium
9: made results rapidly available to the scientific and public health communities; fostered collaboration with many scientific partners and participated in advisory bodies and public health networks; initiatives taken to foster engagement with the wider public.

139 scientific outputs
>3500 downloads of CoMix Belgian
>300 media coverage received
>29 national and international advisory bodies

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

WP1 Clinical data
We shared aggregated clinical data with the wider public, provided input to dashboards and reports of country-specific government agencies. Now, we are engaging with the data owners and exploring how synthetic data can resolve some of the legal and privacy issues in data sharing.
WP2 Epidemiological parameters
We developed innovative techniques to infer key epidemiological variables per variant and we estimated to what extent a new SARS-CoV-2 variant could circulate because of increased transmissibility or because of immune evasion. We developed approaches to assess the severity of infection, in terms of probability of hospitalisation or death after being infected.
WP3 Intervention strategies
To track epidemic progress within countries and project the impact and effectiveness of different interventions, we developed real-time mechanistic models and econometric methods. We developed new techniques to account for methodological biases when analysing real-time data. The pace and intensity of this work is being conducted in a manner not seen before and which required innovations in methodology.
WP4 Social and behavioural understandings
The CoMix survey expanded significantly beyond the original scope of the project. Running in 20 countries across Europe, it was the largest of its kind, providing crucial evidence on social contact patterns to policymakers throughout the course of the pandemic (also additional data “peacetime” conditions and a discrete choice experiment to gauge appetites for different intervention measures, which is important for future pandemic preparedness). The first prototype of the new Influenzanet participatory surveillance platform has been developed and deployed.
WP5 Health Economics
Our public information and data capture system and the database we have populated with macroeconomic parameters are both broad in scope. The application of a macroeconomic model and incorporation of economic analyses in dynamic transmission models combining behavioural change, NPIs and pharmaceutical interventions within months after these are trialled exceed also the state of the art in health economics. We have performed the largest general population survey ever conducted in Belgium and an exceptional longitudinal study on QALY impact in the UK.
WP6 "Dissemination and policy making"
We produced high-quality scientific publications and open-source code, making widely and rapidly available to the scientific and wider community. We advised (inter)national policymakers and public health agencies, receiving national awards and recognition for these efforts and for our contributions to accessible science communication. We produced lay summaries of key publications which were shared on the project’s website and social media. We have collaborated with other EC-funded research consortia and epidemiological experts.
Impact: The impact of EpiPose outputs exceeds our expectations. Most of the developed tools and models have been made operational and are actively being used for decision making. There is active outreach to the wider society through engaging multimedia content, active social media channels, high-level policy reports and press briefings, media coverage and open-source code.

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