Optimal timing of covid-19 booster vaccinations for healthcare workers (work in progress)

Simple compartmental model of waning immunity that is boosted by exposure to the pathogen

Graph showing a mathematical model of the relationship of the force of infection and immunity boosting on the duration of immunity. When immune boosting is present, a greater force of infection can lead to greater immunity

Covid-19 vaccinations are very effective in preventing severe disease and death but their effectiveness declines over time. `Booster’ vaccinations have been given to front line health and social care workers to increase their protection. I am interested in whether changes in the prevalence of the virus could make the vaccine more or less effective at different times. A simple mathematical model suggests a turning point at which a relatively low prevalence of infection could pose a greater risk of infection than a higher one. This work is still in its early stages, but I am investigating whether this may really be the case for healthcare workers, and if so, what the implications of this would be for optimizing booster vaccination programmes.

International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC)

I joined ISARIC in February 2020 when covid-19 started to spread globally. Through international collaboration in data collection, analysis and dissemination, they assembed a tremendous observational dataset about people admitted to hospital with covid-19.

Symptoms by age and sex

By 2021, typical symptoms of fever, cough, shortness of breath, and altered sense of taste and smell were well known. We were interested in whether these were equally applicable for patients of all ages. We used data from 60 thousand people admitted to hospital with covid-19. We found that children could frequently present with symptoms such as nausea and vomiting and abdominal pain, and that older adults might present with confusion.
→ Publication free full text

Clinical data report

In the first months of the pandemic, many hospitals and research groups reported on the symptoms and outcomes of their local patients. We wrote code to produced a regular clinical data report using the international dataset. This included details of symptoms, comorbidities, treatments and outcomes of people admitted to hospital with covid-19.
→ Free access to the clinical data report
→ Code to produce the clinical data report