Edinburgh University scientists are working to create a new Covid alert system that will help to prevent further lockdowns.
The new early warning system could avert future lockdowns by looking at data on vaccine uptake alongside wastewater testing.
The project will use data from Public Health Scotland on vaccine uptake, testing and daily cases, alongside a wastewater monitoring programme run by SEPA and Scottish Water, which identifies when genetic material from the virus is present in wastewater.
It will work by allowing experts to identify potential hotspots early, predict stresses on hospitals and ICUs, and create more focused access to vaccines.
Despite the success of the vaccine rollout in the UK, the experts insist there is still a need for the system amid the risk of new and emerging variants.
While these ‘genetic fragments’ present no known risk of infecting people with Covid-19, it is possible to link these results to specific areas and highlight where infections are increasing or decreasing.
The University of Edinburgh team will use the data to improve short and medium-term forecasts, which could work towards creating strategies to control outbreaks - without the need for further lockdowns.
Teams from the Universities of Edinburgh and Stirling will also conduct a survey to gauge attitudes towards the jab and accessibility, and how the results relate to the Scottish index of multiple deprivation.
Professor Rowland Kao, Chair of Veterinary Epidemiology and Data Science at University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, said: “While we can all hope for eradication of COVID-19 this summer, a more realistic possibility is that we find ways of dealing with regular localised outbreaks. This partnership aims to identify strategies to show where these are, by rapidly picking up outbreaks and introducing local control measures such as surge testing and intensive contact tracing.”
“A key to this is to understand how the numbers of people being vaccinated may vary geographically, as any local clusters with larger numbers of unprotected individuals could drive local outbreaks. In a winter where resources will also be strained by flu and other seasonal infections, controlling those outbreaks, if they occur, could be crucial to avoiding further lockdowns.”
David Pirie, SEPA Executive Director, said: “SEPA was among the first European agencies to begin work, with the help of key partners, to pinpoint Covid-19 RNA in local waste water samples in May 2020.
“The recent announcement from Scottish Government of additional funding means this work has an extension until March 2022. Our laboratory near Eurocentral will continue analysing around 200 samples a week, collected by Scottish Water from waste water treatment works across the country, playing a significant role in Scotland’s recovery from Covid-19. We’re proud that our science expertise is helping public health partners make key decisions to support community testing and we’ll continue to work closely with health specialists and academic partners.”
