Unravelling data for rapid evidence-based response to COVID-19: the unCoVer project

The unprecedented health system's response to the COVID-19 pandemic is generating a multitude of data that has enormous potential for informing policy and research at the national and international levels. The unCoVer project is a functional network of 29 partners that was established to bring together European and international expertise to monitor, identify, and facilitate the access and utilization of COVID-19 patient's data, to identify knowledge gaps, underrepresented populations, and proactively seek synergies with complementary clinical databases. unCoVer's members are capable of collecting and utilizing data derived from the response and provision of care to COVID-19 patients by health systems across Europe and internationally. These real world data comprise information from electronic medical records from front line hospitals, national surveillance data, and registries. Thus far, they integrate information from over 300,000 COVID-19 patients, which is anticipated to increase as databases are being continuously updated. These data may inform future burden of disease assessments, by gaining a deeper understanding on the disease model and variations among heterogeneous groups of patients, including COVID-19 manifestations in vulnerable population subgroups, and shedding light into post-COVID conditions that may add to the disability estimations. A federated learning platform integrating the characterization of ethical and data protection components from each dataset will be used for pooled analysis. unCoVer will develop a model for the use of dissimilar data sources capable of streamlining ethical and legal aspects for the correct use of data, complying with local and international regulations, and bringing together expertise on the use of advanced computational, epidemiological and biostatistical methods to handle heterogeneous, and multi-layered information aiming for significant medical and public health impact.