About the Task Force
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Luxembourg, Research Luxembourg has established the COVID-19 Task Force to coordinate and align concrete work efforts and communication between the research institutions, ministries and hospitals in the country. Based on requests from the Ministries and other stakeholders, several work packages have been defined that the task force will coordinate over the coming weeks and months. The topics range from emergency clinical trials over diagnostic capacity building and strategy, statistical pandemic projections, impact on the economy, anecdotal clinical observations to new project ideas and initiatives that can come forward from the Luxembourgish stakeholders.
The Task Force is organised into 13 Work Packages.
- WP01: Cross-sectional study infection prevalence in Luxembourg
- WP02: Predictive markers for COVID-19 severity
- WP03: Interventional clinical trial with existing drugs
- WP04: Diagnostic capacity and large-scale testing strategies for Luxembourg
- WP05: eHealth solutions for hospitalised and ambulatory patients
- WP06: Statistical pandemic projections
- WP07: Gauging economic impact of the covid-19 outbreak
- WP08: Mobilising volunteers for support of hospital emergency services
- WP09: Mobilising and coordinating private partner initiatives
- WP10: Covid-19 centred communication
- WP11: Evidence-based review team in the outbreak context
- WP12: Ideas for new initiatives in the pandemic context
- WP13: Supply chains and logistics
The task force will focus on three pillars:
- a prevalence study to assess the extent of the spread of the virus and the number of asymptomatic individuals
- a stratification study in which researchers attempt to identify risk factors that contribute negatively to disease progression
- statistical simulations on the evolution, impact and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to provide short- and medium-term projections and thus facilitate decision-making on when restrictions could be lifted
