Developer(s) | |
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Operating system | Android, iOS |
Type | COVID-19 apps |
Website | health-study |
The Zoe Health Study, formerly the COVID Symptom Study, is a health research project of British company Zoe Limited (formerly Zoe Global limited) which uses a mobile app that runs on Android and iOS.
The app was created in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in a collaboration between Zoe, King's College London, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals with funding granted by the UK government until April 2022. [1] The purpose of the app was to track COVID-19 symptoms and other salient data in a large number of people, to enable epidemiological results to be calculated.
The idea for an app to track the spread of COVID-19 came from Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King's College London. In the early months of 2020 he used his startup company ZOE Global Limited to build a Covid Symptom Tracker app in collaboration with King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals. [2] [3] By May 2020 the app's name had changed to COVID Symptom Study. [4] Initially the project was UK-based, where there is open membership. [5] In the United States at a later date[ when? ] various cohorts from existing studies were added, including from the Nurses' Health Study; this research was in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital. [5] The project website states that ZOE COVID Study data provided will not be sold (aggregate data from wider Zoe health studies research may be used by Zoe to develop commercial health products). [6] The project also collaborated with the Outbreaks Near Me platform based out of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital. [7]
The app was released as a trial for 5,000 twins, [8] using patients involved in other Zoe research projects. [2] It was later expanded for use by non-twins. [2] The app entered the UK Apple App Store and Google Play Store on 24 March, and the US App and Play stores on 29 March. [5]
At the end of April 2020, the project received assistance from the Department of Health and Social Care which allowed it to offer up to 10,000 COVID-19 tests each week to participants. [9] In August 2020, the UK government made a grant of £2 million to support data collection by the project, [10] [11] and by August 2021, government funding amounted to £5m. [12] In May 2021, the associated company name was changed from ZOE Global Limited to ZOE Limited. [13] Government funding (latterly via the UK Health Security Agency) ceased at the end of March 2022. [14] [1]
In May 2022, ZOE announced that the name of the study would change to ZOE Health Study, to reflect its use in logging symptoms extending beyond those of COVID-19. [15]
Within 24 hours of being available in the UK, the app had been downloaded over 1 million times. [2] A paper using data collected in the four weeks up to 21 April 2020 analysed symptoms from 2.45 million people in the UK and 168,000 in the US. [16] As of May 2020, the app had been downloaded by over 3 million people, [5] including 2 million Britons. [17] By 17 July the number exceeded 4 million. [18]
Researchers who analysed data collected in the last three months of 2020 said they used more than 65 million health reports from 1.76 million users. [19] By July 2021, the app had been used by 4.6 million people in Britain and about a quarter of that number continued to self-report every day. [12]
The COVID Symptom Study requires users to give their location. [17] Users give personal information including age, gender and location, and report if they have any underlying chronic conditions. [20] They also answer questions related to common COVID-19 symptoms, and input any illness or symptoms that they have, [5] [2] as well as stating whether they have been tested for COVID-19. [20] Beginning in May 2020, a random sample of users is selected (on the first day they report symptoms) for a swab test. [9] Researchers then use statistical analysis to determine which symptoms are likely to indicate COVID-19, [17] rather than the common cold or seasonal influenza. [2] The app does not have any contact tracing functionality. [5]
Based on the data inputted into the app, researchers estimated that when cases peaked on 1 April 2020, 2.1 million people in the UK aged between 20 and 69 may have had COVID-19, and that as of 23 May 2020, 280,000 people in that age range currently had symptoms consistent with COVID-19. [21] The study also estimates the risk level to health workers, compared with the general public. [22] Research based on the app was described in papers in Science on 5 May 2020 [23] and in Nature Medicine on 11 May 2020. [16] Using data from the app, researchers were able to identify six distinct types of COVID-19 and forecast which initial symptoms were more likely to lead to severe illnesses. [24] [25]
Zoe Limited also provides in the US and UK, as a separate product, a "personalized nutrition program" whereby the company supplies sensors to quantify a person's gut microbiome, blood fat, and blood sugar responses to food intake, alongside an app which uses this data to recommend dietary modifications. [26] [27]
Timothy David Spector is a British epidemiologist, medical doctor, and science writer.
Your.MD also known as Healthily, is a digital healthtech company that uses artificial intelligence to provide users with personalised health information via a chatbot.
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is a global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, China, in December 2019, before it spread to other areas of Asia, and then worldwide in early 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and assessed the outbreak had become a pandemic on 11 March 2020. The WHO ended the PHEIC on 5 May 2023. As of 24 May 2024, the pandemic has caused 7,047,741 confirmed deaths, making it the fifth-deadliest pandemic or epidemic in history.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Most scientists believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus entered into human populations through natural zoonosis, similar to the SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV outbreaks, and consistent with other pandemics in human history. Social and environmental factors including climate change, natural ecosystem destruction and wildlife trade increased the likelihood of such zoonotic spillover. The disease quickly spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 testing involves analyzing samples to assess the current or past presence of SARS-CoV-2. The two main types of tests detect either the presence of the virus or antibodies produced in response to infection. Molecular tests for viral presence through its molecular components are used to diagnose individual cases and to allow public health authorities to trace and contain outbreaks. Antibody tests instead show whether someone once had the disease. They are less useful for diagnosing current infections because antibodies may not develop for weeks after infection. It is used to assess disease prevalence, which aids the estimation of the infection fatality rate.
The COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the United Kingdom, it has resulted in 24,924,986 confirmed cases, and is associated with 232,112 deaths.
The COVID-19 pandemic was first confirmed to have spread to England with two cases among Chinese nationals staying in a hotel in York on 31 January 2020. The two main public bodies responsible for health in England were NHS England and Public Health England (PHE). NHS England oversees the budget, planning, delivery and day-to-day operation of the commissioning side of the NHS in England, while PHE's mission is "to protect and improve the nation's health and to address inequalities". As of 14 September 2021, there have been 6,237,505 total cases and 117,955 deaths in England. In January 2021, it was estimated around 22% of people in England have had COVID-19.
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COVID-19 apps include mobile-software applications for digital contact-tracing—i.e. the process of identifying persons ("contacts") who may have been in contact with an infected individual—deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the UK Government introduced various public health and economic measures to mitigate its impact. Devolution meant that the four nations' administrative responses to the pandemic differed; the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive produced different policies to those that apply in England. Numerous laws were enacted or introduced throughout the crisis.
NHS COVID-19 was a voluntary contact tracing app for monitoring the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in England and Wales, in use from 24 September 2020 until 27 April 2023. It was available for Android and iOS smartphones, and could be used by anyone aged 16 or over.
NHS Test and Trace was a government-funded service in England, established in 2020 to track and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The programme is part of the UK Health Security Agency; the service and the agency are headed by Jenny Harries.
COVID Tracker Ireland is a digital contact tracing app released by the Irish Government and the Health Service Executive on 7 July 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Ireland. The app uses ENS and Bluetooth technology to determine whether a user have been a close contact of someone for more than 15 minutes who tested positive for COVID-19. On 8 July, the app reached one million registered users within 36 hours after its launch, representing more than 30% of the population of Ireland and over a quarter of all smartphone users in the country. As of August 2021, over 3,030,000 people have downloaded the app.
Part of managing an infectious disease outbreak is trying to delay and decrease the epidemic peak, known as flattening the epidemic curve. This decreases the risk of health services being overwhelmed and provides more time for vaccines and treatments to be developed. Non-pharmaceutical interventions that may manage the outbreak include personal preventive measures such as hand hygiene, wearing face masks, and self-quarantine; community measures aimed at physical distancing such as closing schools and cancelling mass gathering events; community engagement to encourage acceptance and participation in such interventions; as well as environmental measures such surface cleaning. It has also been suggested that improving ventilation and managing exposure duration can reduce transmission.
This article presents official statistics gathered during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
Test, Trace, Protect is a government-funded service in Wales, first published on 13 May 2020 by the Welsh Government to track and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Its aim is to "enhance health surveillance in the community, undertake effective and extensive contact tracing, and support people to self-isolate".
Software for COVID-19 pandemic mitigation takes many forms. It includes mobile apps for contact tracing and notifications about infection risks, vaccine passports, software for enabling – or improving the effectiveness of – lockdowns and social distancing, Web software for the creation of related information services, and research and development software. A common issue is that few apps interoperate, reducing their effectiveness.
Undercounting of COVID-19 pandemic deaths has been witnessed around the world. Global mortality excess estimates by the World Health Organization are significantly different from official figures, pointing to undercounting– "while 1,813,188 COVID-19 deaths were reported in 2020... WHO estimates suggest an excess mortality of at least 3,000,000." The global average for underreporting COVID-19 deaths in cities is 30%. The aim of arriving at a truer death count is ultimately linked to improving national and international abilities and responses to fighting the virus. Undercounting can cause a number of problems such as delay in vaccines to priority populations.
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Zero-COVID, also known as COVID-Zero and "Find, Test, Trace, Isolate, and Support" (FTTIS), was a public health policy implemented by some countries, especially China, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast to the "living with COVID-19" strategy, the zero-COVID strategy was purportedly one "of control and maximum suppression". Public health measures used to implement the strategy included as contact tracing, mass testing, border quarantine, lockdowns, and mitigation software in order to stop community transmission of COVID-19 as soon as it was detected. The goal of the strategy was to get the area back to zero new infections and resume normal economic and social activities.