Investigating incidence, severity and risk factors for COVID-19 in BAME and Migrant groups to inform public health action.

The severity of illness from COVID-19 and risk of death appears to be increased in minority ethnic and migrant groups. Most of our information about COVID-19 is from people who are ill enough to have to go to hospital. This means we have an incomplete understanding of the infection and how we can tackle it in the community. Our first study will solve this problem by including more minority ethnic and migrant communities in our existing study, Virus Watch, which is studying COVID-19 in the community. Each week we will ask 12,000 people to report any symptoms. We will test a subset any time they have symptoms, and we will perform antibody blood tests (to find evidence of ever having the infection) at the start and end of the study. We will be able to explore why COVID-19 affects BAME and migrant communities differently. Our second study will use health records for nearly all non-EU migrants and refugees that arrived in the UK since 2015. We will use these data to examine how often these groups get diagnosed, hospitalised and die from COVID-19 and investigate whether their existing health conditions and socioeconomic circumstances affect their risk of COVID-19.