Data@breakfast goes online to share information on COVID-19

It was a logical step for UKZN Pro Vice-Chancellor for Big Data and Informatics, Professor Francesco Petruccione, to turn to the online world so as to continue with his monthly data@breakfast seminar series during the national COVID-19 lockdown.

With the use of the online "Zoom" Webinar tool, 200 participants - each sitting in the comfort of their own home on day one of South Africa's national #stayathome - tuned in at 7:30am sharp to listen to a highly topical and lucid presentation by UKZN COVID-19 war room member, Dr Richard Lessells. Lessells' talk tackled the issue of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and provided both a local and global perspective.

Lessells* - an infectious diseases specialist based at UKZN's Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) - is currently deployed to the UKZN COVID-19 war room and is supporting the local response to the epidemic.

"COVID-19 is a remarkable pandemic that is going to change us fundamentally in many ways, including how we work as academics," said Lessells. "News first came out of a cluster of people with undiagnosed pneumonia in Wuhan, China, on ProMED on 30 December 2019. In just three months we have reached the half-a-million mark of diagnosed infections worldwide, and the epicentre has shifted from China, to Europe, to the USA. Such a pandemic was something we as epidemiologists were aware could happen at some stage. As countries, we were prepared, but at different levels. Countries expected to have coped have struggled."

Lessells provided a clear and cogent overview of the spread of COVID-19 around the world, the trajectory that the disease has followed in different countries, and the positive impact early testing and quarantine have had on the steepness of the infection curve.

"Widespread testing, including of asymptomatic people, is what has made the difference and led to relatively low mortality in countries such as South Korea," he said.

International statistics presented by Lessells pointed to a higher mortality rate among older people. He noted, however, that while South Africa's population pyramid indicates a younger population than a country such as Italy, which theoretically should work in its favour, what is not yet known is the effect that HIV and TB would have on the rate of COVID-19 infections. With South Africa being at the epicentre of the fight against Aids, Lessells stressed the importance of people establishing their HIV status and taking the necessary medication if COVID-19 is to be tackled comprehensively.

Discussing the transmission dynamics of COVID-19, Lessells said the R0 (Basic Reproduction Number, viz how many people on average one person will infect) is estimated at two to three, which makes it significantly more transmissible than flu. Factors that affected the R0 included probability of transmission per contact between infected and susceptible (p), contacts per unit time (c) and duration of infectiousness (d). Global interventions are aimed at reducing this R0.

Questioned on the possibility of a vaccine being developed, Lessells cautioned that while "the startling fact of this pandemic is how quickly the science has happened", a widely available vaccine is at least 18 months away. "Where we are now, the essential thinking is to reduce contact between people, because this is the main variable that we can currently control. Transmission is primarily via droplets and contact. These transmission methods lead to the recommended measures of physical separation and respiratory and hand hygiene."

Lessells explained that stage one of South Africa's response focused on a public information campaign, international travel restrictions, school and university closures, and limiting mass gatherings.

"The cornerstone of our public health response has been the identification and isolation of infectious cases, with monitoring and quarantine of close contacts."

As South Africa enters the next phase of lockdown, Lessells explained the implications: "The purpose of the lockdown is to reduce the overall contact rate in the population," he said. "On its own, lockdown won't extinguish the epidemic, but it buys us time. We need to use this time wisely."

Lessells strongly supported advice provided by the World Health Organization - which he praised for doing a remarkable job - on how to use this window of opportunity provided by lockdown optimally. In closing, he quoted Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General of the WHO: "Use this time to expand, train and deploy your public health workforce. Implement a system to find every suspected case at community level. Ramp up the production, capacity and availability of testing. Identify, adapt and equip facilities you will use to treat and isolate patients. Develop a clear plan and process to quarantine contacts. And refocus the whole of government on suppressing and controlling."

UKZN's COVID-19 war room efforts have been supported by a big data consortium led by Petruccione, which provides daily statistical updates to track the behaviour of the epidemic in South Africa.

"We have amazing data visualisation tools," said Lessells. "What the graphs and statistics show us is that COVID-19 behaves in much the same way wherever it is and whatever the country. But the impact the virus has depends on us as humans and how we handle it.

"I am very happy that we have managed to continue with the tradition of data@breakfast in these challenging times," said Petruccione. "It is ironic that we just needed a tiny little virus to accelerate our use of the tools of the fourth industrial revolution!

"The COVID-19 team at UKZN are doing exceptional work."

* Dr Richard Lessells trained as an infectious diseases and internal medicine physician in the UK and has a PhD from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He has been conducting clinical and population-based research on HIV and TB in KwaZulu-Natal since 2007 and is based at KRISP, UKZN.

For a video recording of Dr Lessells' talk, please see online: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS7l3SkZtwGK3IDePadqDaQ

For further information, visit https://www.krisp.org.za/; https://vc.ukzn.ac.za/covid-19/ or e-mail [email protected].

Words and photograph: Sally Frost