Abstract
Background Coronavirus has lead to significant morbidity and mortality both within the UK and worldwide. We hypothesise there are local clusters of coronavirus which would therefore be amenable to targeted public health measures.
Methods This is a retrospective, observational case series conducted in a West London District General Hospital. All patients admitted to hospital with a radiological or microbiological diagnosis of Covid-19 were included (children under 16 years were excluded). Consecutive sampling was used and baseline characteristics including age, sex, postcode and final patient outcome were collected from the electronic health records. Patient origin postcode was plotted to a map of the local area and an online cloud based mapping analysis system was used to generate heat maps and case density maps which were compared to living base layers. The primary outcome was identification of local clusters of cases of coronavirus. Secondary outcome was identification of population characteristics that may provide evidence for more targetted public health intervention in a second wave.
Results Local clusters of infection were identified within the target population. These appeared to correlate with higher indices of deprivation, poorer overall health and high household occupancy suggesting a role for public health measures to target these areas.
Conclusion There is a role for targeted public health measures in tackling the spread of coronavirus, paying particular attention to those who live in more deprived areas.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Funding Statement
Nil outside funding.
Author Declarations
I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.
Yes
The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:
Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust
All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.
Yes
I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).
Yes
I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.
Yes
Data Availability
Raw data is available from author.