About the project

Goals and methods

The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 presents a great threat to public health and economy. While various measures of mitigating the disease are being implemented around the globe, health systems of many countries are being overwhelmed with both the response to the novel coronavirus and the need to maintain essential services. Many COVID-19 sufferers experience a limited access to proper health guidance, diagnostics and therapeutics, thus resorting to self-diagnosis and self-care has become popular. Accordingly, social media constitute a significant, if unreliable, source of information for a large number of patients.

The aim of this project is to expand the knowledge about the novel disease by exploring the collective online voice of people who have been affected. To this end various techniques of online survey and web mining will be implemented. It is hoped that the data collected during the project will be useful to the clinicians, researchers, and the general public.

The project is entirely self-funded.

What will happen to collected data?

None of the surveys requires personally identifiable information. Any private and sensitive entries will be removed from the raw data and never published nor preserved in any form. Anonymized raw data repository will be made available to general public for independent inspection and data mining. Data summaries and reports will be presented on the project's website and open-access scientific reports and articles. To the maximum extent possible, the project will follow FAIR data and Open Science principles.

Contact

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Study: self-reported reinfections with SARS-CoV-2

It is currently unknown whether the (cell- or antibody-mediated) immune response to SARS-CoV-2 leads to protective immunity. The longevity of immune response to the disease has important implications for identifying strategies for preventing spread, testing, vaccine design, etc. However, it is known that reinfections with all seasonal coronaviruses can happen within three years. Currently (October 2020) the risk of secondary infection with SARS-CoV-2 has not been consistently demonstrated, but the evidence of reinfection cases confirmed by viral genomic sequencing is growing. Among the confirmed reinfections, the severity of the secondary one ranges from milder (or asymptomatic) to more severe.

This study aims to investigate self-reported reinfections with SARS-CoV-2 by collecting responses to online survey. The survey contains both the constrained multiple choice questions and optional freetext responses. It is estimated that filling out the short version will not take more than 10 minutes. The structure of the survey is as follows.

  • What is your age? (numeric)
  • What is your sex? (male/female/other/prefer not to say)
  • Where do you live? (country, state, etc.)
  • What is the month of the initial infection? (month)
  • How were you diagnosed the first time? (PCR (swab test) / antibody (blood test) / other)
  • Rate the relative severity of the first infection. (scale 0-5: 0 stands for no symptoms, 5 for self-perceived life-threatening symptoms)
  • Please write down the main symptoms during the initial infection. (optional, freetext)
  • What is the month of the secondary infection? (month)
  • How were you diagnosed the second time? (PCR (swab test) / antibody (blood test) / other)
  • Rate the relative severity of the secondary infection. (scale 0-5: 0 stands for no symptoms, 5 for self-perceived life-threatening symptoms)
  • Please write down the main symptoms during the reinfection. (optional, freetext)
  • If you with to share other information (comorbidities, blood group, etc.) please do it here. (optional, freetext)
The survey will initially be open for three weeks.

References:

  1. Bao L, Deng W, Gao H, Xiao C, Liu J, Xue J, et al. Reinfection could not occur in SARS-CoV-2 infected rhesus macaques. bioRxiv. 2020:2020.03.13.990226
  2. Edridge AW, Kaczorowska JM, Hoste AC, Bakker M, Klein M, Jebbink MF, et al. Human coronavirus reinfection dynamics: lessons for SARS-CoV-2. medRxiv. 2020:2020.05.11.20086439.
  3. Wajnberg A, Amanat F, Firpo A, Altman DR, Bailey MJ, Mansour M, McMahon M, et al. Robust neutralizing antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 infection persist for months, Science Oct. 2020.
  4. Goldman JD, Wang K, Roltgen K, Nielsen SCA, Roach JC, Naccache SN, Yang F, Wirz OF, et al. Reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 and Failure of Humoral Immunity: a case report. medRxiv 2020.09.22.20192443
  5. Akiko Iwasaki. What reinfections mean for COVID-19. Lancet. Lancet Infectious Diseases Oct. 2020.
  6. Raddad LJA, Chemaitelly H, Malek JA, Ahmed AA, BSc,Mohamoud YA, et al. Assessment of the risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in an intense re-exposure setting. medRxiv 2020.08.24.20179457
  7. de Araujo Torres D, do Carmo Bueno Ribeiro L, de Freitas Linhares Riello AP, Dafne Dain Gandelman Horovitz DD, Pinto LFR, Croda J. Reinfection of COVID‐19 after 3 months with a distinct and more aggressive clinical presentation: case report. Journ. of Medical Virology Oct. 2020.
  8. https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/latest-evidence/immune-responses