Virus Watch: Understanding community incidence, symptom profiles, and transmission of COVID-19 in relation to population movement and behaviour.

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The novel strain of Coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused large numbers of deaths andsevere societal disruption in China and is predicted to become a global pandemic. Toprepare and respond we need to know how many people become infected, how many ofthem become ill, what their symptoms are, how many seek health care, how commonlythey transmit to household contacts, what proportion need hospitalisation and whatproportion die. We need to understand how the population responds e.g. hand washing,behaviours during and after coughing, sneezing or nose wiping, and whether peoplerestrict their movements and social contacts. Since many of those infected will haverelatively mild symptoms and not seek medical advice the only way to accurately obtainthis information is to conduct large scale community studies. We will follow up members ofthe public and contacts of cases using regular online surveys of symptoms andbehaviours, secure tracking of participant movements, and testing for COVID-19 and otherrespiratory infections to build a detailed picture of how the virus spreads and thepopulation responds. We will share this data with participants, health service and publichealth planners and the general public to help minimise the impact of the virus.