Background: Households appear to be the highest risk setting for transmission of COVID-19. Large household transmission studies were reported in the early stages of the pandemic in Asia with secondary attack rates ranging from 5-30% but few large scale household transmission studies have been conducted outside of Asia. Methods: A prospective case ascertained study design based on the World Health Organization FFX protocol was undertaken in the UK following the detection of the first case in late January 2020. Household contacts of cases were followed using enhanced surveillance forms to establish whether they developed symptoms of COVID-19, became confirmed cases and their outcomes. Household secondary attack rates and serial intervals were estimated. Individual and household basic reproduction numbers were also estimated. The incubation period was estimated using known point source exposures that resulted in secondary cases. Results: A total of 233 households with two or more people were included with a total of 472 contacts. The overall household SAR was 37% (95% CI 31-43%) with a mean serial interval of 4.67 days, an R0 of 1.85 and a household reproduction number of 2.33. We find lower secondary attack rates in larger households. SARs were highest when the primary case was a child. We estimate a mean incubation period of around 4.5 days. Conclusions: High rates of household transmission of COVID-19 were found in the UK emphasising the need for preventative measures in this setting. Careful monitoring of schools reopening is needed to monitor transmission from children.

1Objectives 2 Current national estimates of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)-associated hospital 3 admissions are insufficiently detailed to determine optimal vaccination strategies for RSV. 4We employ novel methodology to estimate the burden of RSV-associated hospital 5 admissions in infants in England, with detailed stratification by patient and clinical 6 characteristics. 7 8 Methods 9We used linked, routinely collected laboratory and hospital data to identify laboratory-10 confirmed RSV-positive and RSV-negative respiratory hospital admissions in infants in 11England, then generate a predictive logistic regression model for We applied this model to all respiratory hospital admissions in infants in England, to 13 estimate the national burden of RSV-associated admissions by calendar week, age in weeks 14 and months, clinical risk group and birth month. 15 16Results 17 We estimated an annual average of 20,359 (95% CI 19,236-22,028) RSV-associated 18 admissions in infants in England from mid-2010 to mid-2012. These admissions accounted 19 for 57,907 (95% CI 55,391-61,637) annual bed days. 55% of RSV-associated bed days and 20 45% of RSV-associated admissions were in infants <3 months old. RSV-associated admissions 21 peaked in infants aged 6 weeks, and those born September to November. 22 23Conclusions 24We employed novel methodology using linked datasets to produce detailed estimates of 25 RSV-associated admissions in infants. Our results provide essential baseline epidemiological 26 data to inform future vaccine policy. 27 28 29 30 Funding 31 Farr Institute of Health Informatics Research (grant MR/K006584/1). 32 33

Objectives: Following detection of the first virologically-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Great Britain, an enhanced surveillance study was initiated by Public Health England to describe the clinical presentation, course of disease and identify risk factors for infection of the first few hundred cases. Methods: Information was collected on the first COVID-19 cases according to the First Few X WHO protocol. Case-control analyses of the sensitivity, specificity and predictive value of symptoms and risk factors for infection were conducted. Point prevalences of underlying health conditions among the UK general population were presented. Findings: The majority of FF100 cases were imported (51.4%), of which the majority had recent travel to Italy (71.4%). 24.7% were secondary cases acquired mainly through household contact (40.4%). Children had lower odds of COVID-19 infection compared with the general population. The clinical presentation of cases was dominated by cough, fever and fatigue. Non-linear relationships with age were observed for fever, and sensitivity and specificity of symptoms varied by age. Conditions associated with higher odds of COVID-19 infection (after adjusting for age and sex) were chronic heart disease, immunosuppression and multimorbidity. Conclusion: This study presents the first epidemiological and clinical summary of COVID-19 cases in Great Britain. The FFX study design enabled systematic data collection. The study was able to characterize the risk factors for infection with population prevalence estimates setting these relative risks into a public health context. It also provides important evidence for generating case definitions to support public health risk assessment, clinical triage and diagnostic algorithms.

This paper was submitted to the Bulletin of the World Health Organization and was posted to the COVID-19 open site, according to the protocol for public health emergencies for international concern as described in Vasee Moorthy et al.

Background In the United Kingdom (UK), in recent influenza seasons, children are offered a quadrivalent live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV4), and eligible adults mainly trivalent inactivated vaccine (TIV). Aim To estimate the UK end-of-season 2017/18 adjusted vaccine effectiveness (aVE) and the seroprevalence in England of antibodies against influenza viruses cultured in eggs or tissue. Methods This observational study employed the test-negative case–control approach to estimate aVE in primary care. The population-based seroprevalence survey used residual age-stratified samples. Results Influenza viruses A(H3N2) (particularly subgroup 3C.2a2) and B (mainly B/Yamagata/16/88-lineage, similar to the quadrivalent vaccine B-virus component but mismatched to TIV) dominated. All-age aVE was 15% (95% confidence interval (CI): −6.3 to 32) against all influenza; −16.4% (95% CI: −59.3 to 14.9) against A(H3N2); 24.7% (95% CI: 1.1 to 42.7) against B and 66.3% (95% CI: 33.4 to 82.9) against A(H1N1)pdm09. For 2–17 year olds, LAIV4 aVE was 26.9% (95% CI: −32.6 to 59.7) against all influenza; −75.5% (95% CI: −289.6 to 21) against A(H3N2); 60.8% (95% CI: 8.2 to 83.3) against B and 90.3% (95% CI: 16.4 to 98.9) against A(H1N1)pdm09. For ≥ 18 year olds, TIV aVE against influenza B was 1.9% (95% CI: −63.6 to 41.2). The 2017 seroprevalence of antibody recognising tissue-grown A(H3N2) virus was significantly lower than that recognising egg-grown virus in all groups except 15–24 year olds. Conclusions Overall aVE was low driven by no effectiveness against A(H3N2) possibly related to vaccine virus egg-adaption and a new A(H3N2) subgroup emergence. The TIV was not effective against influenza B. LAIV4 against influenza B and A(H1N1)pdm09 was effective.

Background Households appear to be the highest risk setting for COVID-19 transmission. Large household transmission studies in the early stages of the pandemic in Asia reported secondary attack rates ranging from 5 to 30%. Aim We aimed to investigate the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in household and community settings in the UK. Methods A prospective case-ascertained study design based on the World Health Organization FFX protocol was undertaken in the UK following the detection of the first case in late January 2020. Household contacts of cases were followed using enhanced surveillance forms to establish whether they developed symptoms of COVID-19, became confirmed cases and their outcomes. We estimated household secondary attack rates (SAR), serial intervals and individual and household basic reproduction numbers. The incubation period was estimated using known point source exposures that resulted in secondary cases. Results We included 233 households with two or more people with 472 contacts. The overall household SAR was 37% (95% CI: 31–43%) with a mean serial interval of 4.67 days, an R0 of 1.85 and a household reproduction number of 2.33. SAR were lower in larger households and highest when the primary case was younger than 18 years. We estimated a mean incubation period of around 4.5 days. Conclusions Rates of COVID-19 household transmission were high in the UK for ages above and under 18 years, emphasising the need for preventative measures in this setting. This study highlights the importance of the FFX protocol in providing early insights on transmission dynamics.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a common seasonal respiratory virus and an important cause of illness among infants, but the burden of RSV disease is not well described among the older population. The objective of this study was to estimate the age-specific incidence of hospital admission among over 65 s due to respiratory illnesses attributable to RSV in England to inform optimal vaccine and therapeutic interventions.We used linear multiple regression to examine the effect of changes in weekly counts of respiratory pathogens on the weekly counts of respiratory hospital admissions.The study population was all patients aged 65 years or over admitted to English hospitals between 2nd August 2010 and 30th July 2017.RSV was estimated to account for a seasonal annual average of 71 (95% CI 52-90) respiratory admissions per 100 000 in adults age [65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74] admissions per 100,000 adults age 75+. Pneumococcus was the pathogen responsible for highest annual average respiratory admission with 448 (95% CI 310-587) admissions per 100,000 adults age 65-74 and 1010 (95% CI 527-1493) admissions per 100,000 adults aged 75+.This study shows that RSV continues to exert a significant burden of disease among older adults in England. These findings will support development of policy for the use of RSV therapeutics and vaccines in this age group.

Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre-including this research content-immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.