SaxoCOV survey: Saxony-wide survey of all citizens on the corona pandemic started

How is the population of Saxony experiencing the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic? How spreads the virus in the Free State? Funded by the state of Saxony Research consortium SaxoCOV is looking for an unusual means Answers to these questions: it addresses everyone in Saxony with several anonymous online surveys. That's what the scientists want and scientists use the experiences and assessments of the population, to find out more about the routes of infection, the effectiveness of the pandemic measures and Find out the impact of the pandemic on people. Since the beginning of November a survey of Saxon schoolchildren and teachers. A survey will then start throughout Saxony on December 1st. SaxoCOV calls on all Saxon citizens to participate. Information and links to the online surveys can be found at www.saxoCOV.de.

Over 350 schoolchildren and over 000 teachers from general schools in Saxony were invited to the current school survey. More than 30 people have already taken part and answered questions that provide unusually deep insights into the infection process and the consequences for mental and physical well-being. When planning the surveys, the research team was supported and advised by experts from the fields of school education, child and adolescent psychology, virology, epidemiology, statistics and modelling. The period originally set for November 000 has now been extended to the end of the year in order to give a large number of students and teachers the opportunity to take part in the survey given the extremely tense situation in the schools.

From December 1st, all interested citizens throughout Saxony will have the opportunity to take part in an online survey on the corona pandemic. Participation in the surveys is voluntary. All data is collected anonymously. Professor Friedemann Horn from the Fraunhofer IZI, who heads the project, is hoping for a great response and explains: “The dynamics of the pandemic are still not sufficiently understood. However, we are certain that there is a great deal of knowledge in people's experiences and observations that can help us to draw the most comprehensive possible picture of what is happening in the pandemic across all sections of the population. Therefore we would like to encourage all citizens of Saxony to take part in this survey. A systematic analysis of this knowledge offers us researchers the opportunity to better understand connections, to model the spread of the infection and to better assess the effectiveness of measures.«

For SaxoCOV, scientists from the universities in Leipzig and Dresden have joined forces with those from non-university research institutes of the Fraunhofer, Max Planck and Helmholtz Societies. SaxoCOV is co-financed as part of the Corona measures of the Saxon state government through taxes based on the budget approved by the Saxon state parliament.

All information about SaxoCOV and the links to the online surveys can be found at www.saxoCOV.de. With your participation, you are helping to research the epidemiological dynamics and the consequences of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic for people and society.

Source: Press release Fraunhofer Institutes for Cell Therapy and Immunology from November 29.11.2021th, XNUMX