Addressing Critical COVID-19 Questions Through Research Using Linked Population Data (ACCORD)

Andrew Boulle and colleagues at the Western Cape Government Health Department and the University of Cape Town in South Africa will use a data science approach applied to anonymized COVID-19 health data from the government health department including over one million tests and 60,000 hospital admissions, to study the clinical epidemiology and evolution of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 that emerged in South Africa and the impact on patients with existing health conditions. They will conduct a case-control study to determine the clinical severity of the variant and use a cross-sectional design to explore the evolution of viral load. They will also analyze the impact of COVID-19 on pregnancy by evaluating birth weight and other birth outcomes, such as still births, and use death registries to determine mortality rates in patients with HIV, TB, and diabetes.