Community support for COVID-19 responses and recovery

January 1, 2020

The on-going COVID-19 pandemic requires international collaborative effort in order to protect communities and support their recovery. Research-Aid Networks has been working with a range of partner organizations to support local actions and international advocacy.

At a local level Research-Aid Networks is facilitating:

– Vaccine confidence. Research-Aid Networks is working with local partners, the Global COVID Conversation Learning Network and the Greater LA Veterans Administration to hold conversations about vaccination with community members and trusted experts.

– Safe operation for schools and businesses. In collaboration with the National Scientist Volunteer Database (NSVD), we are providing free-of-charge consulting services for local organizations to facilitate safe practices ranging from guidance on ventilation to workflow to testing strategies. We have also recently published an international call for COVID-safe schools and created guidelines for school safety measures.

– COVID-19 rapid testing. Working with NSVD and FloodLAMP Bio we have optimized a rapid and accurate molecular test for COVID-19 that can be implemented, on-site, by any organization with minimal training and setup.

– Community support and recovery. In collaboration with Zero COVID South Carolina we are providing broad community support services and expert consultation to support current COVID-19 containment efforts and facilitate long-term community recovery and resiliency.

Our local community-support initiatives are supported by a generous grant from the Chicago Community Trust.

Internationally, Research-Aid Networks is acting and advocating for:

– Zero COVID. Recent work has shown that “SARS-CoV-2 elimination, not mitigation, creates best outcomes for health, the economy, and civil liberties“. As such, our collaborative effort, the Pandemic-Aid Network is working to promote awareness of elimination strategies and assist with their international implementation.

– Long COVID research and patient support. It has been estimated that 20% or more of people infected with COVID-19 have persistent symptoms. In collaboration with LongCovidSOS and the University of Exeter Medical School we are studying potential therapeutics for Long COVID. We discuss our results looking at the effect of vaccination on Long COVID symptoms in a recent blog post. We are also working collaboratively to produce The Long Haul video series. The Long Haul is a series created to offer support, information and bring hope through sharing patient stories and the latest scientific insights. By raising awareness and speaking about the many uncertainties that surround this disease, we aim for all countries in the world to acknowledge that for some of those that get COVID-19, the path to recovery is not short nor straight. This international advocacy work is further supported through collaborations with the Long COVID Alliance and Long COVID Kids. For more information about our Long COVID work and the Long Haul series, please see our recent blog post.

– Global equitable vaccine distribution. Without global vaccine availability, we will all continue to be at risk of COVID-19. Even countries with high vaccination rates are at risk of outbreaks with new more-transmissible and vaccine-evading variants. The longer the virus continues to circulate the more variants will emerge and the greater the global risks. As a result, Research-Aid Networks is advocating for the WTO patent waiver and for global strategies enabling equitable vaccine distribution, ranging from mRNA vaccine manufacturing hubs to in-country logistic planning.

– International community-level testing and support. In collaboration with the testing organization U-Smell-It (X-prize winning olfactory test for COVID-19), we are running clinical trails to evaluate the effectiveness of a low cost (<$0.50/test), rapidly implementable test to protect communities in low resource areas from COVID-19.

These projects are collaborations between:

LC

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