Nature reports:

An enormous international database launched today will help epidemiologists to answer burning questions about the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, such as how rapidly new variants spread among people, whether vaccines protect against them and how long immunity to COVID-19 lasts.

Unlike the global COVID-19 dashboard maintained by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and other popular trackers that list overall COVID-19 infections and deaths, the new repository at the data-science initiative called Global.health collects an unprecedented amount of anonymized information about individual cases in one place. For each individual, the database includes up to 40 associated variables, such as the date when they first had COVID-19 symptoms, the date they received a positive test and their travel history.

Individual-level data like these provide the clues that epidemiologists need to determine how diseases are spreading, says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, who is part of the project. “By the time we understand the gravity of an outbreak, it’s often too late,” she says. “Data can close that loop and make the process faster.”

Researchers hope the database will help them to monitor coronavirus variants and vaccines in the months to come, and provide a template for tracking real-time data in future epidemics. [Continue reading…]