On Apr. 20, 2020, a multi-site project, called ‘What’s the STORY?’ received funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to assess novel coronavirus infection rates in children and teenagers across the UK. Given the importance of this study to the national Covid-19 response it has been deemed a priority study for the National Institute for Health Research’s Urgent Public Health Response.

The team aimed to determine how many children and teenagers have been infected with Covid-19, and what proportion of those have had symptoms. The research will also determine how many children and teenagers have not yet been infected and may remain susceptible to Covid-19 when lockdown measures are relaxed.

Professor Matthew Snape, Chief Investigator on the study, said, “To understand the current coronavirus pandemic, we need to work out how many people are becoming infected without showing any symptoms.” ‘What’s the STORY?’ was set up in 2019 as a pilot study to evaluate the UK immunisation programme, but it has now been adapted in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

This new funding allows the project to expand to include new study sites and recruit an additional 1200 children and teenagers (aged 0-19 years) from across England. The team will also test samples already collected and these data, along with medical histories of Covid-19 symptoms, will provide valuable information into the levels of virus circulating in this segment of the population.

A key aspect of this project is the need to assess a representative cohort of children and young people, in order to give an accurate “snapshot” of the wider population. The study team are keen to engage a range of individuals and must ensure that the group tested is not biased towards people who think they may have been infected with Covid-19, and for this reason, the study team will not provide test results to participants.