The Chief Medical Officer for England asked leading academics, clinicians and scientists to create a way of predicting who may be at high risk of serious illness if they catch coronavirus.
A team of researchers, led by the University of Oxford, studied the anonymised health records of more than 8 million people using GP records, hospital records and mortality data from late January 2020 to April 2020. This initial analysis, funded by the National Institute for Health Research, was done using data collected during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom.
The results showed that things such as age, sex assigned at birth, height and weight (used to calculate body mass index (BMI)), ethnicity and some medical conditions increased risk relating to coronavirus – these are known as risk factors.
Further research was done using more up to date data (up to June 2021), and the model has been refined and updated based on the latest findings. Factors such as vaccinated status and current infection rates are now reflected in the model and some conditions have been removed as risk factors where sufficient data was not available.
QCovid® was designed to:
- risk assess the general population
- inform people about their risk level
- support people with decisions about behaviours in consultation with a clinician
The QCovid® model is not a vaccine effectiveness study and is therefore not designed to be used for comparing someone’s risk when not vaccinated with their risk once vaccinated.