About the Project

Project COVERED is a prospective cohort study of 1600 health care personnel (HCP) working in US emergency departments (EDs) with the following primary objectives:

1. To estimate the attributable risk of occupational acquisition of COVID-19 infection for emergency physicians and nurses.

2. To estimate the attributable risk of occupational acquisition of COVID-19 infection related to emergency endotracheal intubation. 

3. To identify patient-, provider-, facility-, and procedure-based risk factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 transmission during endotracheal intubation.

4. To determine the prevalence of symptomatic and symptomatic COVID-19 infections occurring in ED HCPs.

These questions will be answered through public health surveillance of a cohort of HCPs by obtaining serial symptoms questionnaires, SARS-CoV-2 serology (IgG), and self-collected nasal swabs (PCR) over a 12-week surveillance period during the global COVID-19 pandemic of the following 4 study populations:

1. Emergency physicians likely to be performing endotracheal intubation

2. Emergency physicians unlikely to be performing endotracheal intubation

3. Emergency department nurses

4. Emergency department nonclinical staff unlikely to have patient contact

Study sites were selected to be high-volume academic emergency departments primarily from the following two national ED-based research networks:

1. EMERGEncy IDNet – This CDC-funded 12-site ED-based emerging infectious disease network was created for surveillance and research of emerging infectious diseases (PI: David Talan, MD); and

2. National Emergency Airway Registry (NEAR) – This 26-site network is the largest ED-based research network focused on a multicenter observational airway management studies (PI: Calvin Brown III, MD).

Project COVERED is being administered through the infrastructure of EMERGEncy IDNet, with the Clinical Coordinating Center at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Data Coordinating Center at the University of Iowa.