India

Age-standardised mortality rates for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), non-COVID-19 deaths and all deaths by vaccination status, broken down by age group.

In recent years behavioural science has quickly become embedded in national level governance. As the contributions of behavioural science to the UK's COVID-19 response policies in early 2020 became apparent, a debate emerged in the British media about its involvement. This served as a unique opportunity to capture public discourse and representation of behavioural science in a fast-track, high-stake context. We aimed at identifying elements which foster and detract from trust and credibility in emergent scientific contributions to policy making. With this in mind, in Study 1 we use corpus linguistics and network analysis to map the narrative around the key behavioural science actors and concepts which were discussed in the 647 news articles extracted from the 15 most read British newspapers over the 12-week period surrounding the first hard UK lockdown of 2020. We report and discuss (1) the salience of key concepts and actors as the debate unfolded, (2) quantified changes in the polarity of the sentiment expressed toward them and their policy application contexts, and (3) patterns of co-occurrence via network analyses. To establish public discourse surrounding identified themes, in Study 2 we investigate how salience and sentiment of key themes and relations to policy were discussed in original Twitter chatter (N = 2,187). In Study 3, we complement these findings with a qualitative analysis of the subset of news articles which contained the most extreme sentiments (N = 111), providing an in-depth perspective of sentiments and discourse developed around keywords, as either promoting or undermining their credibility in, and trust toward behaviourally informed policy. We discuss our findings in light of the integration of behavioural science in national policy making under emergency constraints.

Summary scores.

The COVID-19 Health Inequalities Monitoring in England (CHIME) tool brings together data relating to the direct impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) on factors such as mortality rates, hospital admissions, confirmed cases and vaccinations.

By presenting inequality breakdowns - including by age, sex, ethnic group, level of deprivation and region - the tool provides a single point of access to:

• show how inequalities have changed during the course of the pandemic and what the current cumulative picture is
• bring together data in one tool to enable users to access and use the intelligence more easily
• provide indicators with a consistent methodology across different data sets to facilitate understanding
• support users to identify and address inequalities within their areas, and identify priority areas for recovery

In the March 2023 update, data has been updated for deaths, hospital admissions and vaccinations. Data on inequalities in vaccination uptake within upper tier local authorities has been added to the tool for the first time. This replaces data for lower tier local authorities, published in December 2022, allowing the reporting of a wider range of inequality breakdowns within these areas.

Please send any questions or comments to PHA-OHID@dhsc.gov.uk

The data relates to the project COVID-19: Human Rights Implications of Digital Certificates for Health Status Verification. The study aimed at analysing the implications of Covid-19 health status certificates for data privacy and human rights. These certificates are also commonly referred to as digital health passports.

Covid-19 health status certificates are defined in the study as an all-encompassing term, referring to the digital and paper-based certificates that, combined with identity verification, allow individuals to prove their health status (such as the results of Covid-19 tests and vaccination records).

The study could draw on twenty semi-structured interviews with technologists and experts in digital identity and certification conducted between December 2020 and March 2021, as well as disciplinary and interdisciplinary literature reviews and evaluations of primary and secondary sources of law.

The UK government announced it would consider establishing "immunity passports" as part of a lockdown exit strategy during the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19. Digital certificates for verifying immunity, proof of vaccination and COVID-19 test results may contribute to the long-term COVID-19 management strategy, whereby based on their health status, certain individuals would be able to return to work and enjoy their general freedom of movement. Yet, such certificates pose important questions for the protection of data privacy and human rights, given that they would (1) use sensitive personal health information, (2) create a new distinction between individuals based on their health status, and (3) be used to determine the degree of freedoms and rights one may enjoy.

The technologies adopted during the current pandemic will have a lasting impact on our societies. They will shape how we respond to the trade-offs between data privacy, human rights, and public health interests. This project will evaluate whether and how digital certificates for health status affect our enjoyment of data privacy and the protection of our human rights, assessing whether there are effective ways to mitigate any potential risks for these rights, thus informing decision-making in this area of crucial national interest.

Characteristics of the study population (derivation and validation cohorts).

As of May 2, 2023, there were roughly 687 million global cases of COVID-19. Around 660 million people had recovered from the disease, while there had been almost 6.87 million deaths. The United States, India, and Brazil have been among the countries hardest hit by the pandemic.

The various types of human coronavirus The SARS-CoV-2 virus is the seventh known coronavirus to infect humans. Its emergence makes it the third in recent years to cause widespread infectious disease following the viruses responsible for SARS and MERS. A continual problem is that viruses naturally mutate as they attempt to survive. Notable new variants of SARS-CoV-2 were first identified in the UK, South Africa, and Brazil. Variants are of particular interest because they are associated with increased transmission.

Vaccination campaigns Common human coronaviruses typically cause mild symptoms such as a cough or a cold, but the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has led to more severe respiratory illnesses and deaths worldwide. Several COVID-19 vaccines have now been approved and are being used around the world.

In 2020, global gross domestic product declined by 6.7 percent as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak. In Latin America, overall GDP loss amounted to 8.5 percent.