Bridging the gap – estimation of 2022/2023 SARS-CoV-2 healthcare burden in Germany based on multidimensional data from a rapid epidemic panel

Throughout the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Germany lacked an adaptive population panel for epidemic diseases and a modelling platform to rapidly incorporate panel estimates. We evaluated how a cross-sectional analysis of 9922 participants of the MuSPAD study in June/July 2022 combined with a newly developed modelling platform could bridge the gap and analyzed antibody levels, neutralizing serum activity and interferon-gamma release response of serum samples. We categorized the population into four groups with differing protection against severe course of disease (validated by neutralizing serum activity), and found that 30% were in the group with highest protection, and 85% in either the highest categories or second highest group regarding protection level. Estimated hospitalizations due to SARS-CoV-2 were predicted to be between 30 to 300% of the peak in 02/2021 dependent on assumed variant characteristics. We showed the feasibility of a rapid epidemic panel able to evaluate complex endpoints for SARS-CoV-2 and inform scenario modelling. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This work was supported by The Helmholtz Association, European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [grant number 101003480], the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the Network University Medicine (NUM) via the egePan Unimed project (grant number: 01KX2021), the IMMUNEBRIDE project (grant number: 01KX2121) and the PREPARED project (grant number: 01KX2121), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) via the RESPINOW (grant number: MV2021-012) and OptimAgent (grant number: MV2021-014) projects, by the German Research Foundation (DFG) via the SpaceImpact (grant number: KA 5361/7-1) and Epiadaptdiag (grant number: KA 5361/1-1) projects as well as by intramural HZI funds. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: Ethics committee of Hannover Medical School (9086\_BO\_S\_2020) gave ethical approval for this work. Data management was conducted according to a data protection concept devised for the original MuSPAD study and approved by relevant authorities including the ethics committee of Hannover Medical School (9086\_BO\_S\_2020). I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors. The anonymized data for this study will be made available to other academic researchers. Institutions can apply for the data via serohub@helmholtz-hzi.de. [https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges\_Coronavirus/Daten/Klinische\_Aspekte.xlsx?__blob=publicationFile][1] ) [1]: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Daten/Klinische_Aspekte.xlsx?__blob=publicationFile