ORCID Profile
0000-0003-2715-0562
Current Organisations
University of Oxford
,
University of Oxford: Oxford, Oxfordshire, GB
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Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 02-08-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.07.30.22278161
Abstract: To quantify in absolute and relative terms how population-level COVID-19 death rates have changed in demographic and clinical subgroups. Retrospective cohort study on behalf of NHS England. Linked primary care and death registry data from the OpenSAFELY-TPP platform, covering the first three pandemic waves in England (wave 1: March 23 to May 30, 2020 wave 2: September 7, 2020 to April 24, 2021 and wave 3, delta: May 28 to December 14, 2021). In total, 18.7, 18.8, and 18.7 million adults were included for waves 1, 2, and 3 respectively. COVID-19-related mortality based on linked death registry records. The crude absolute COVID-19-related death rate per 1,000 person-years decreased from 4.48 in wave 1 (95%CI 4.41 .55), to 2.70 in wave 2 (95%CI 2.67 .73), to 0.64 in wave 3 (95%CI 0.63 .66). The absolute death rate decreased by 90% between waves 1 and 3 in patients aged 80+, but by only 20% in patients aged 18-39. This higher proportional reduction in age- and sex-standardised death rates was also seen for other groups, such as neurological disease, learning disability and severe mental illness. Conversely, standardised death rates in transplant recipients stayed constant across successive waves at 10 per 1,000 person-years. There was also only a small decrease in death rates between waves in people with kidney disease, haematological malignancies or conditions associated with immunosuppression. Consequently, the relative hazard of COVID-19-related death decreased over time for some variables (e.g. age), remained similar for some (e.g. sex, ethnicity), and increased for others (e.g. transplant). COVID-19 death rates decreased over the first three pandemic waves. An especially large decrease was seen in older age groups and people with neurological disease, learning disability or severe mental illness. Some demographic inequalities in death rates persisted over time. Groups more likely to experience impaired vaccine effectiveness did not see the same benefit in COVID-19 mortality reduction.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 08-11-2021
DOI: 10.1101/2021.11.08.21265380
Abstract: While the vaccines against COVID-19 are considered to be highly effective, COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough is likely and a small number of people will still fall ill, be hospitalised, or die from COVID-19, despite being fully vaccinated. With the continued increase in numbers of positive SARS-CoV-2 tests, describing the characters of in iduals who have experienced a COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough could be hugely important in helping to determine who may be at greatest risk. With the approval of NHS England we conducted a retrospective cohort study using routine clinical data from the OpenSAFELY TPP database of fully vaccinated in iduals, linked to secondary care and death registry data, and described the characteristics of those experiencing a COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough. As of 01 st November 2021, a total of 15,436,455 in iduals were identified as being fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with a median follow-up time of 149 days (IQR: 107-179). From within this population, a total of 577245 ( %) in iduals reported a positive SARS-CoV-2 test. For every 1000 years of patient follow-up time, the corresponding incidence rate was 98.02 (95% CI 97.9-98.15). There were 16,120 COVID-19-related hospital admissions, 1,100 COVID-19 critical care admission patients and 3,925 COVID-19-related deaths corresponding incidence rates of 2.72 (95% C 2.7-2.74), 0.19 (95% C 0.18-0.19) and 0.66 (95% C 0.65-0.67), respectively. When broken down by the initial priority group, higher rates of hospitalisation and death were seen in those in care homes and those over 80 years of age. Comorbidities with the highest rates of breakthrough COVID-19 included chronic kidney disease, dialysis, transplant, haematological malignancy, and immunocompromised. The majority of COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough cases in England were mild with relatively few fully vaccinated in iduals being hospitalised or dying as a result. However, some concerning differences in rates of breakthrough cases were identified in several clinical and demographic groups. While it is important to note that these findings are simply descriptive and cannot be used to answer why certain groups have higher rates of COVID-19 breakthrough than others, the emergence of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 coupled with the continued increase in numbers of positive SARS-CoV-2 tests are concerning. As numbers of fully vaccinated in iduals increases and follow-up time lengthens, so too will the number of COVID-19 breakthrough cases. Additional analyses, aimed at identifying in iduals at higher risk, are therefore required.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 31-07-2023
DOI: 10.1101/2023.07.31.23293419
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruption to routine activity in primary care. Medication reviews are an important primary care activity to ensure safety and appropriateness of ongoing prescribing and a disruption could have significant negative implications for patient care. Using routinely collected data, our aim was to i) describe the SNOMED CT codes used to report medication review activity ii) report the impact of COVID-19 on the volume and variation of medication reviews. With the approval of NHS England, we conducted a cohort study of 20 million adult patient records in general practice, in-situ using the OpenSAFELY platform. For each month between April 2019 - March 2022, we report the percentage of patients with a medication review coded monthly and in the previous 12 months. These measures were broken down by regional, clinical and demographic subgroups and amongst those prescribed high risk medications. In April 2019, 32.3% of patients had a medication review coded in the previous 12 months. During the first COVID-19 lockdown, monthly activity substantially decreased (−21.1% April 2020), but the rate of patients with a medication review coded in the previous 12 months was not substantially impacted according to our classification (−10.5% March 2021). There was regional and ethnic variation (March 2022 - London 21.9% vs North West 33.6% Chinese 16.8% vs British 33.0%). Following the introduction of “structured medication reviews”, the rate of structured medication review in the last 12 months reached 2.9% by March 2022, with higher percentages in high risk groups (March 2022 - care home residents 34.1%, 90+ years 13.1%, high risk medications 10.2%). The most used SNOMED CT medication review code across the study period was Medication review done - 314530002 (59.5%). We have reported a substantial reduction in the monthly rate of medication reviews during the pandemic but rates recovered by the end of the study period.
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 06-06-2022
DOI: 10.1101/2022.06.06.22276026
Abstract: The UK COVID-19 vaccination programme delivered its first “booster” doses in September 2021, initially in groups at high risk of severe disease then across the adult population. The BNT162b2 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was used initially, with Moderna mRNA-1273 subsequently also used. We used the OpenSAFELY-TPP database, covering 40% of English primary care practices and linked to national coronavirus surveillance, hospital episodes, and death registry data, to estimate the effectiveness of boosting with BNT162b2 compared with no boosting in eligible adults who had received two primary course vaccine doses between 16 September and 16 December 2021 when the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 was dominant. Follow up was for up to 10 weeks. Each booster recipient was matched with an unboosted control on factors relating to booster priority status and prior immunisation. Additional factors were adjusted for in Cox models estimating hazard ratios (HRs). Outcomes were positive SARS-CoV-2 test, COVID-19 hospitalisation, COVID-19 death and non-COVID-9 death. Booster vaccine effectiveness was defined as 1−HR. Among 4,352,417 BNT162b2 booster recipients matched with unboosted controls, estimated effectiveness of a booster dose compared with two doses only was 50.7% (95% CI 50.1-51.3) for positive SARS-CoV-2 test, 80.1% (78.3-81.8) for COVID-19 hospitalisation, 88.5% (85.0-91.1) for COVID-19 death, and 80.3% (79.0-81.5) for non-COVID-19 death. Estimated effectiveness was similar among those who had received a BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1-S two-dose primary vaccination course, but effectiveness against severe COVID-19 was slightly lower in those classified as clinically extremely vulnerable (76.3% (73.1-79.1) for COVID-19 hospitalisation, and 85.1% (79.6-89.1) for COVID-19 death). Estimated effectiveness against each outcome was lower in those aged 18-65 years than in those aged 65 and over. Our findings are consistent with strong protection of BNT162b2 boosting against positive SARS-CoV-2 test, COVID-19 hospitalisation, and COVID-19 death.
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
No related grants have been discovered for Colm Andrews.