CoRiCal: COVID-19 Risk Calculator
CoRiCal is a tool to help people make decisions about getting a COVID-19 vaccine. It shows how the vaccine can lower the chance of catching, getting sick from or dying from COVID-19. It also shows the chance of getting rare side effects from the vaccines.
The tool shows the chance based on your age, sex, and vaccinations. You can choose to see the results ‘as a chance' or 'per million people' by clicking on the tabs.
The results shown are only a guide. The tool shows the average result for people with the same sex and age as you. This tool does not consider other things that can change your chance of infection or illness from COVID-19. This includes your general health, where you work or go to school, or your COVID-19 safe behaviours.
When making decisions about getting a COVID-19 vaccine, you should also consider how your chance might change in the future. This might include a change in the number of cases in your community or travel to an area with more cases.
Watch these videos for examples of how to understand the risk calculator results: general model, kids model, long covid model.
Long Covid Podcast Series
Rationale
Five percent of people who get COVID will develop long COVID. Between 500,000 and 1 million people have had (or still have long COVID). The median duration is 4 months and while there are no definitive treatment(s), a rehabilitation approach has proven to be effective. It has been estimated the $9.6 billion (0.5% of GDP) has been lost in people with long COVID being unable to return to work for many months. The GP is in the frontline for managing long COVID and many GPs are unclear about their role or how they can more effectively help their patients with long COVID.
Being up to date with COVID vaccine boosters and early intervention with anti-virals (Paxlovid) (or possibly metformin) if a person gets COVID, can reduce the incidence of long COVID.
The main target audience for these podcasts is GPs and consumers
Three of the podcasts have been recorded: two with Professor Steven Faux AM (previous GP and now head of rehabilitation at St Vincent’s hospital, Sydney) and one with Professor Brendan Crabb AC (CEO of the Burnett Institute, Melbourne). Both speakers have established reputations in the area of long COVID.
Professor Steven Faux AM is a Rehabilitation expert. He had been a GP for a number of years. He runs the largest and longest running Long COVID clinic at St Vincents hospital in Sydney. He has authored a very good up to date summary paperback book on Long COVID in April this year. He has been a longstanding informed commentator on long COVID and is involved in a number of ongoing research projects looking into long COVID.
Professor Brendan Crabb AC is a virologist and head of the prestigious Burnet institute in Melbourne. He has also been a leading investigator into the underlying pathophysiology of long COVID and has done a lot of work looking at strategies to improve air quality and its impact on getting COVID.
Steven discusses the risk factors for long COVID, the underlying pathophysiology and symptom clusters in the first podcast and treatment and prevention in the second podcast, including getting a COVID booster. Less than 1 in 4 adults 75 years and older have had a COVID booster in the last 6 months.
Brendan discusses the current research on the underlying pathophysiology and what treatments are emerging in the research.
| Name | Title & Content | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Professor Steven Faux | Long COVID Part 1
| 31.19 mins |
| Professor Steven Faux | Long COVID Part 2
| 41 mins |
| Professor Brendan Crabb | Long COVID: Current research on risk factors, pathophysiology, and emerging treatments
| 50 mins |
| Associate Professor John Litt | Long COVID: Current research on risk factors, pathophysiology, and emerging treatments
| 4 mins |
You can find the Long Covid Podcast Series at this link.
Video Overview
The CoRiCal team have produced a few short film clips to outline:
- what is CoRiCal, our COVID-19 Risk calculator, and who has contributed to its construction
- why it was developed,
- why it is both useful and unique, summarising the strengths of using such a decision-making tool.
- the risk chart for COVID-19 deaths to estimate the likely risk of dying from COVID-19 based upon age, sex and number of COVID-19 vaccine doses.
- an example using the CoRiCal tool to explain the risk and benefit of COVID-19 vaccination for children.
Using the CoRiCal tool for a personalised COVID-19 vaccine risk assessment - Long COVID
Explanation of the CoRiCal Kids Model
General Model
Full CoRiCal Video
What is CoRiCal?
Why did the academic team develop CoRiCal?
A significant number of people ( ~30%) have not had a COVID-19 vaccine booster. This puts them at considerable risk from the more recent Omicron COVID-19 variants as they have little protection. Given that nearly 75% of the deaths from COVID-19 have occurred this year and can be attributed to Omicron.
Strengths of CoRiCal
Risk of dying from COVID-19
Acknowledgements
The CoRiCal team are very grateful to Dr Ramesh Manocha and his team HealthEd for graciously providing their film crew to film the CoRiCal clips at no cost. The CoRiCal team are also grateful to Kim Sampson, Jayne Geddes and the team at the Immunisation Coalition in providing ongoing administrative support to the development of CoRiCal.
CoRiCal co-chairs: Colleen Lau, John Litt, Kirsty Short
Project conception: Andrew Baird, John Litt, Kirsty Short
Web Development: Aapeli Vuorinen, Tina Moghaddam, Hongen Lu
Subject expertise: Andrew Baird, Anoop Enjeti, Colleen Lau, John Litt, Raj Puranik, Kirsty Short, Tej Shukla, Sudhir Wahi, Olivia Williams, Sophie Wen, Phil Britton
Model design: Colleen Lau, Helen Mayfield, Kerrie Mengersen, Tej Shukla, Jane Sinclair, Ramona Muttucumaru, Sam Brown, Olivia Williams
Data acquisition: Andrew Baird, Anoop Enjeti, Colleen Lau, John Litt, Tej Shukla, Kirsty Short
Data analysis: Samuel Brown, Colleen Lau, Helen Mayfield, Kerrie Mengersen, Jane Sinclair, Michael Waller
Risk Communication: Carissa Bonner (videos), Colleen Lau, John Litt, Kirsty Short, Jane Sinclair
Administration and project management: Jayne Geddes, John Litt, Helen Mayfield, Kim Sampson, Kirsty Short, Hongen Lu
