Archived - COVID-19: Vaccines (no longer being updated)

Last updated and links checked 27th November 2021.

UK Health Security Agency: Coronavirus has a section on vaccines

The Green Book, chapter 14a, from Public Health England contains vaccination information for health professionals.

COVID-19 testing and vaccines. Useful looking ebook from Biotechniques (free registration may be required)

Department of Health and Social Care - scroll for various items on vaccinations

European Medicines Agency - COVID-19 vaccines

Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency - Coronavirus - Vaccines

NHS - Coronavirus vaccines

UK Health Security Agency - COVID19 vaccination programme.

UK Health Security Agency's Public Health Matters blogpost about the role of the MHRA and Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisations. 

Find the latest research with this PubMed search (sorted by best match) 

For discussion about global access to the vaccine, look at information from Global Justice Now and Medecins sans Frontieres. 

Archived - COVID-19: Long COVID (no longer being updated)

Links checked 27th November 2021

My (6 line) Ovid Medline search strategy for Long Covid (may need updating)

COVID-19 NICE rapid guideline: managing the long-term effects of COVID-19, developed by NICE, SIGN and the RCGP.  

NICE's search strategies are available (PDF)  including a more detailed Ovid Medline strategy, and strategies for other databases.

Resources 

UK Health Security Agency

Royal College of General Practitioners: management of the long effects of COVID-19 (PDF).

Articles (all are open access) (I will add some more recent items)

Viewpoint (review article), Long-term health consequences of COVID-19, Journal of the American Medical Association (October 2020)

Feature, COVID-19: what do we know about long COVID: British Medical Journal (July 2020)

Rapid review, Short- and potential long-term adverse health outcomes of COVID-19, Emerging Microbes and Infections (October 2020)

Nasal and throat swab test

Our younger son was chosen at random to take part in a trial, to try and see who has COVID-19 now but without symptoms.    People were chosen at random from GP registers.

Once enrolled, he was sent a nose and throat swab testing kit, with a link to this subtitled video to explain to him and us what to do.   Because he is under 13, we had to administer the test, which he was not pleased about, arguing he could do it himself.   But protocols are protocols.  We ran the risk of invalidating our part in the experiment by not doing the test properly, but would letting him do it himself do the same?

Some of the procedure in that video will apply in other situations, I am sure, but the video is tailored to this particular trial.   What else is there?

Most of the top listed results on YouTube at the moment are COVID related.  There is this very detailed one from Public Health England and another from PHE on nasal swab tests for care home staff.    Among the videos from hospital systems outside the UK, there is this one from Barts and this one from the Maudsley.   There is this very short one from Medscape, which assumes you have the culture medium, and are not sending the swab somewhere else for testing.  It also assumes your patient has tonsils, which the trial video does not.  

For my students, there is the Royal Marsden Manual - section 13.18, Swab sampling: throat, and Section 13.14 on nasal swabs.    This is very text based, but very step by step.  There is also a throat swab video in Clinical Key (Physician).  

Archived - COVID-19 resources (no longer being updated)

This post is no longer being updated and neither are any of the pages linked from it.

Links were last checked on 1st February 2022.    

**For information relating to Leicester, please see this information from Leicester City Council.**

Some collections of information are listed at the end of this post.   I have also collected information sources about COVID-19 in these separate posts:

• B.1.1.529 (Omicron) variant of concern
  
  
  
• News
  
  
• COVID and pregnancy 
  
  
• COVID vaccines
  
  
• Current awareness and literature searching
  
  
• Epidemiology, genetics and data
  
  
• Global aspects (updated December 2021)
  
  
• Information for health professionals
  
  
• Information for the public, including travel advice
  
  
• Journals, books and databases with some free content  (links checked December 2021)
  
  
• Long COVID  
  
  
• Mental health and wellbeing

Other collections of information

Knowledge for Healthcare (HEE): COVID-19/Coronavirus - (Health Education England).  For Knowledge and Library Service staff in the NHS.   Use the link in the menu bar to access resources, including those for patients.

Compass: COVID-19 resources for social and behavior change - material relating to some African nations or Pakistan.  

Evidence Aid Coronavirus Resources Information Hub - systematic reviews, guidelines, journal and publisher resources, and information in languages other than English.

Finding the Evidence: Coronavirus (UK Health Security Agency).    Resources listed that require an OpenAthens login may be restricted to UKHSA staff, but University of Leicester undergraduate health students can ask their library (librarians@le.ac.uk) and NHS staff their library for advice.

WHO EPI-WiN   Information from the WHO Information Network for Epidemics.
To search for information relevant to the NHS and patients, search NICE Evidence Search

Archived - COVID-19: mental health and wellbeing (no longer being updated)

Links checked 27th November 2021


American Psychiatric Association Publishing - Resources for Psychiatrists and on Coping with the Outbreak

Coronavirus and your mental health (MIND)
Information on wellbeing, for key workers, for young people, about managing feelings about lockdown easing, and about rights to social care.

Coronavirus: how to protect your mental health (BBC) 

Managing your mental health during the coronavirus outbreak (Mental Health UK)

Information on wellbeing while working with home, looking after families, information for  employers for their employees on furlough, helping others in your community, and more.

MentalCoronavirus and mental wellbeing (NHS Every Mind Matters)


I have posts covering other aspects of COVID-19.

Archived - COVID-19: information for health and care professionals (no longer being updated)

Links checked 2nd July 2022.

On this page, evidence summaries, guidelines and government and related information for practitioners.

See also the epidemiology and genetics and current awareness pages.  There is a page of journal and database publishers making content available free (although I suspect this is out of date).

REACT
Findings from the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission study

Read by QxMD - Breaking research on the COVID-19 Pandemic

A collection of articles (you may need a subscription to read the full articles, but your Library may be set up with QxMD to allow access - ask your Librarian).

Resources from Royal Colleges (list maintained by HEE)

Clinical Trials

The WHO ICTRP indexes trials from a number of sources, including the US and EU registries.  From the launch page you can download lists of COVID-19 trials.   There is also a link to the search portal.   Clinicaltrials.gov is listing at least some COVID-19 related trials including studies from the WHO. There is a separate Clinicaltrials.gov page (linked from this one) about trials related to SARS-CoV-2.

NCBI SARS-CoV resources includes clinical trials

UK government information

New and Emerging Respiratory Viruses Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG).  

Coronavirus (COVID-19): UK government page

MHRA Coronavirus pages (information about clinical trials of treatments and vaccines)

Infectious diseases: UK government, including policy, news, statistics, forms, research and guidance

Coronavirus data  - numbers of cases and deaths

House of Lords Science and Technology Committee: the Science of COVID-19

Other UK information

King's Fund - leadership support and analysis on COVID-19

NHS England coronavirus information for clinicians and NHS managers

Nursing and Midwifery Council : Coronavirus information and advice

NICE - all NICE guidelines, including rapid guidelines, and advice on COVID-19.

UK Health Security Agency have a comprehensive list of resources, Finding the Evidence: Coronavirus, including many of interest to health professionals (some resources may not be available to University of Leicester members, who are welcome to contact their library to check. NHS staff should contact their own library to check). 

SAGE

Independent SAGE

If you are in practice or placement in the NHS, or have placement students in your care, please look for advice from your Trust.

Elearning

BMJ Learning -  learning related to COVID-19 and wellbeing. Some is free to access, some not.

COVID-19 Critical Care (University of Edinburgh / Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh - limited access unless you pay)

eLfH Coronavirus (for use in UK.   Available outside UK as eIntegrity Coronavirus e-Learning Programme 

eLearning resources (HEE)

Evidence based summaries

BMJ Best Practice - coronavirus  - material on coronavirus and some comorbidities.  Some material is free, other material requires NHS access or a subscription.

DynaMed - coronavirus (a subscription may be needed)

Evidence Aid - Coronavirus - summaries of research, in English and other languages

UpToDate (a subscription may be needed)

Other information for health and care professionals

Contact your library if you need something related to a particular specialty not listed here.

Lots of publishers are (or were) making journal content available for free and these are listed on a separate page.   

Ambulance services and prehospital care (Library and Knowledge Services for NHS Ambulance Services in England)

American Academy of Pediatrics - Critical updates and resources for paediatricians

American Association for the Advancement of Science - News, research news, and links to material from other organisations.   

American Psychiatric Association COVID-19 Hub

American Society of Clinical Oncology Coronavirus resources

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Healthcare workers - Information on COVID-19

COVID-19 END (Evidence Network to support decision making, McMaster University)

Department of Health and Social Care (UK)  - advice for health professionals.  

Elsevier COVID-19 Information Hub - materials from Elsevier sources including Clinical Key

Evidence Aid Coronavirus Information Portal - systematic reviews, guidelines, journal and publisher resources, and information in languages other than English.

Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News includes information on drug treatments in development.

Information from the The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, Intensive Care Society, Association of Anaesthetists and Royal College of Anaesthetists 

International Confederation of Midwives COVID-19 resources

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities: Wider Impact of COVID-19 on Health (WICH) Monitoring Toolublic Health England Wider impacts of COVID-19 on health monitoring tool (WICH)

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, coronavirus (COVID-19), pregnancy and women's health

Royal College of Physicians (of London) Ethical dimensions of COVID-19 for frontline staff.

Relief Central - collection from Unbound Medicine, containing guidelines and information for the public. Information from the WHO and CDC and other sources.

Social Care Institute for Excellence, Coronavirus (COVID-19) advice for social care. Advice for councils and other organisations providing social or residential care, or supported living.

World Health Organization - Country and technical guidance ; Global Research on Coronavirus (COVID-19) (scientific literature database)


I have posts covering other aspects of COVID-19. Links are on the page here.

Archived - COVID-19: journal, books and databases with some freely available content (no longer being updated)

This was a list of journals, books and databases that were made available for free when the COVID-19 pandemic started.

I checked the links in December 2021 and kept those which still seemed to allow free access.  

At the start of the pandemic, some publishers pledged to make COVID-19 related content freely available, including for some in PubMed Central - they are asterisked on this list from the Wellcome.

GIDIF-RBM (an Italian association for health librarians) have a list (in Italian, dated March 2020) of freely available resources

Here are publishers that were (and possibly still are) making coronavirus related content available for free, or publishing it open access.

American Academy of Pediatrics - Critical updates and resources for paediatricians.

American College of Physicians - A collection of Annals of Internal Medicine articles related to coronavirus is freely available.

American Medical Association - JAMA Network COVID-19 information collection

American Psychiatric Association Publishing - Resources for Psychiatrists and on Coping with the Outbreak

American Society for Microbiology - research articles about COVID-19, and a toolkit to help spread information.

American Society of Civil Engineers - Resources for working from home.

Annual Reviews Coronavirus article collection

BioOne - articles in journals hosted in BioOne.

Coronavirus Hub - research, guidance and updates.  Includes articles from other journals published by BMJ.

CABI Global Health - Free access to coronavirus resources in this public and global health resource.   Click Login, Redeem a voucher, then register (or login) to be able to use the code CV4Y85D5JG9.  (Code still valid December 2021). Searches also include animal coronavirus references from CAB Abstracts.

Cambridge University Press: Coronavirus Free Access Collection.  Still a free access collection December 2021.

Clarivate - A range of resources, including Cortellis Drug Discovery Intelligence.  Request access on this page.  There is also a Disease Briefing (Disease Insight).   Note the dashboard seems not to cover periods of time after January 2021.

Elsevier - Novel coronavirus information center - guidance and clinical information, some specially written.  Access to research articles in Elsevier journals.  Some information from China, including some in Chinese, from sources including the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  Also includes official guidance from a number of countries.  

Emerald: Free content related to coronavirus and the management of epidemics.

Future Science Group (Infectious Diseases Hub) - COVID-19 Hub

Health Service Journal - free access to HSJ coronavirus content (registration required)

JSTOR Public Health journals.  Access possible to institutions that have some access already to JSTOR, until June 2022.

Karger: Topic articles Coronavirus (COVID-19).  

The Lancet - Coronavirus Hub

Mary Ann Liebert - Free articles from the journal Health Security

MEDBOX - a collection of resources for humanitarian and aid workers, now includes coronavirus resources.

Microbiology Society - articles. 

MIT Press - Articles on understanding pandemics and epidemiology.  Free access may have ended in August 2020.

National Academy of Sciences COVID-19 Responses and resources

NEJM - Coronavirus (COVID-19) - Collection of articles and other resources.  

Open Book Publishers - blog post giving details of resources being made free by a number of publishers (scroll down).

Ovid: tools and resources for clinicians.  Request access to GIDEON, access to records in Ovid Medline and Journals@Ovid, and to articles in American Heart Association and other journals hosted by Ovid.

Oxford University Press: Free access to OUP resources on coronavirus and related topics.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - Sharing research data and findings relevant to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

ProQuest Coronavirus Research Database.  Searches open access content and preprints. Login needed - search for your institution (worked for mine, can't guarantee it will work for yours!)

Royal Society - research data and findings relevant to the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Royal Society of Chemistry - Coronavirus articles - free to access collection

SAGE journals - medical, social and behavioural articles

Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics - free access to the SIAM Epidemiology Collection.

Springer Nature - Novel coronavirus - research articles, and a live blog

Thieme: Specialist Information on the Coronavirus: 

Wiley - coronavirus research articles.


I have posts covering other aspects of COVID-19.   Links are on the page here.

Archived - COVID-19: Current awareness and literature searching (no longer being updated)

Last updated 3rd February 2022.


To keep up to date with new scientific literature about COVID-19, use one of the searches or curated lists below.

Archived - COVID-19: news (no longer being updated)

For news for health professionals, look at the BMJ or New England Journal of Medicine.   You may need a subscription or access through a library to read the items.   University of Leicester students and staff can login here first.

Links checked and updated 27th November 2021

NICE

NICE guidelines on COVID-19



WHO 

WHO situation reports

WHO news releases (on all topics - use the filters to find coronavirus related ones) .

WHO health topics: coronavirus. 

World Health Organization emergencies: nCoV

UK

Coronavirus data (DHSC), updated daily.

News sites

BBC: coronavirus outbreak

The Guardian: coronavirus.  The Guardian have a weekly email newsletter.

The New Humanitarian: Infectious diseases  (The New Humanitarian is an independent source of news on humanitarian crises and gives a perspective from low and middle income countries)



Specialist news sources and items

BMJ news.   BMJ's content about the virus is all available for free.

CIDRAP - Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy, University of Missouri

Nature - infection.   Scroll down to read news items.   Some are free to read.   For those that are not, University of Leicester members can use this link instead: Nature - infection.

STATNews (infectious diseases)

I have posts covering other aspects of COVID-19.   Links are on the page here.

Archived - COVID-19: epidemiology, genetics and data (no longer being updated)

Links last checked 3rd February 2022.  Item labelled NEW was added 27th June 2022


How many cases?
See the WHO dashboard or the Johns Hopkins CSSE map.   JHU CSSE shows number of cases, recoveries and deaths.   

Official UK government COVID data - cases, testing, deaths, healthcare.  Scroll down to search for data for a specific geographical area.  Go to the cases, deaths, healthcare or testing pages to find data for a nation, region or local authority area.

Office for National Statistics Coronavirus Infection Survey, also this ONS Coronavirus Infection Survey for 24th June 2022 (NEW)

The official note of the R number for the UK

Real-Time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) 

For up to date information relevant to the NHS, look at NHS Evidence Search (this service closes on 31 March 2022).

Research data

COVID-19 data portal
Sequence data for the virus and host, biochemical data, expression and protein data.  And a search facility for EuropePMC.   Maintained by EMBL-EBI.

Epidemiological information

China Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Tracking the Epidemic (in English).  Numbers of cases and deaths.

ProMedMail for reports of cases.

HealthMap.  Displays ProMedMail data in graphical form. Use Your Location at the top of the screen to display data for a specific country or city.   Current alerts will be shown to the left.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA)

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

UK Health Security Agency / DHSC

Genetic and related information

SARS-CoV-2 Variants Overview.   From the National Library of Medicine, aggregates data from GenBank and the Sequence Read Archive.

COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK) Group of NHS, academic and other institutions undertaking virus sequencing.   

COVID-19 phylogeny and strain connections (a map)

Rapid access to SARS-CoV-2 data (NCBI Insight)

NCBI SARS-CoV resources
Literature, sequence and protein sequence data, clinical trials

There are multiple sequences in the NCBI Virus SARS-CoV-2 Data Hub.

There are multiple sequences in the GISAID database (registration required)



I have posts covering other aspects of COVID-19.   Links are on the page here.

Archived - COVID-19: information for the public (no longer being updated)

Links were checked on 2nd July 2022.

UK COVID-19 Enquiry

Terms of reference for the UK COVID-19 Enquiry

Website for the UK COVID-19 Enquiry

Archived - COVID-19: global aspects (no longer being updated)

Coronavirus is having an impact all over the world and in some countries is raising issues that are not so much of an issue in the UK.   So on this post I shall collect resources that look at the impact of the pandemic on lower and middle income countries and on the world as a whole.  To start with here are two:

Global Justice podcasts - some are about coronavirus.

The New Humanitarian's Coronavirus coverage includes discussion of the impact on aid and migration, and a newsletter.  The New Humanitarian also has a piece about other infectious diseases, which have not gone away.

GAVI: The Vaccine Alliance.   Not just COVID vaccines, of course.  Linked to GAVI is COVAX,  the vaccines part of the WHO's Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator.

World Health Organization.  A global view of the pandemic, 

What's new in midwifery - 11th March 2020

University and College Union industrial action is disrupting my blogposts at the moment, but I thought this one could not wait...

RCOG guidance on managing coronavirus in pregnancy

News item

RCOG guidance on COVID-19 and pregnancy

RCOG information for pregnant women and their families