"QCovid® was developed as a model to estimate a person’s risk of being hospitalised or dying due to catching coronavirus."
"More details about QCovid®
QCovid® was used by NHS Digital to identify patients in England at high risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes, adding an additional 1.7 million people to the national shielded patient list in February 2021 and prioritising them for vaccination.
How QCovid® was developed?
QCovid® was commissioned in 2020 by the Chief Medical Officer for England on behalf of the UK government. The first QCovid® tool was developed using the QResearch database hosted at Oxford. This database has anonymised data from GP and hospital records, COVID-19 test results and death registries. Factors such as age and medical conditions which were found to increase risk relating to coronavirus were used to build a risk prediction model. The model, QCovid®, estimates someone’s combined risk of catching coronavirus and being admitted to hospital and their combined risk of catching coronavirus and dying.
The tool has now been updated to include factors such as vaccination status and prior infection. There is a need to identify those at highest risk of severe outcomes if infected with COVID-19, even if individuals are vaccinated.
The model was tested to find out whether it accurately predicted severe outcomes due to COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic in England. More recently, it has been updated and tested in subsequent pandemic waves with the most recent version tested on individuals with a positive COVID-19 test between December 2021 and June 2022.
The research, published in the BMJ showed that the model performed well in predicting severe outcomes due to COVID-19 (death and hospitalisation) in both models."
“PLEASE NOTE: This implementation of the QCovid risk calculator is NOT intended for use supporting or informing clinical decision-making.”
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