VIVALDI Cohort Profile: Using linked, routinely collected data and longitudinal blood sampling to characterise COVID-19 infections, vaccinations, and related outcomes in care home staff and residents in England

Abstract

VIVALDI (ISRCTN14447421) is a government-funded longitudinal open observational cohort study of staff and residents in care homes for older people in England. The study aimed to describe epidemiology (including seroprevalence) and immune responses to COVID-19 in a subset of care homes, in the context of extremely high mortality in this setting, in the first 12-18 months of the pandemic. Data linkage to routine health data was undertaken for all staff and residents and a subset of individuals who consented to sequential blood sampling to investigate SARS-CoV-2 immunity. This paper aims to describe the samples stored within the study biobank, available for use by researchers. Over 70,000 individuals from 346 care homes were included in the data linkage cohort (1st March 2020–31st March 2023). 4975 samples from 2268 individuals (1419 staff, 827 residents) collected between 29th October 2020 and 10th March 2023 are stored. Amongst these samples, there was a maximum of seven per participant however, 217 (26.2%) residents and 555 (39.1%) staff participated in one round only. Key study findings include high COVID-19 seroprevalence among surviving residents, exceeding rates in community-dwelling peers. COVID-19 vaccinations generated robust immune responses in staff and residents which waned, supporting the need for booster vaccination, particularly in response to new variants. Prior infection significantly improved vaccine-induced immune responses, however protection from infection declined following Omicron variant emergence. This is a unique cohort of pre- and post-infection samples linked to data on COVID-19 infections, vaccinations, and outcomes. The cohort spans host immune response evolution to infection and vaccination in this rarely sampled population of frail older care home residents who are especially vulnerable to infection and severe outcomes. These samples can be used to investigate biological mechanisms behind disparate infection responses in older people and make a valuable contribution to research into ageing.