Risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 infections and outbreaks in care home staff and residents

In 2020, over one in four people who died from COVID-19 infection in England lived in a care-home . Reducing deaths in this vulnerable group by protecting them from infection using approaches like vaccination, is a priority. To understand if these work, and who has the biggest risk of getting infected, we need to know how many people have had the infection and how this affects their immune system. However, we cannot do this yet as collecting this information is difficult. To answer these questions, researchers from UCL have set up the VIVALDI study, one of the biggest studies of COVID-19 in care-homes. Care-home staff and residents who take part have repeated swab testing to find out who is infected, and blood testing to see who had COVID-19 before. Information is collected about hospital admissions and deaths in these people, and about the care-homes themselves, like size. Using this information, I will find out which care-homes have had the most infections, who is most likely to get infected, and in people who have been infected or vaccinated, how long they are protected for. The results will help government officials understand which changes can prevent COVID-19 and other infections in care-homes.