Coronavirus Symptom-Tracking

In light of the Covid-19 pandemic, we would like to ask you to keep reporting your child’s symptoms via Studybugs, even through school closures.

In the Studybugs app, you just need to open the family menu (top-right), select a child, then report them as ill or fine.

Make sure you untick the box if they’re not going to be absent from school. The message won’t go to your child’s school (please ignore if it says they’ll be notified – we’ll be removing this soon).

In the Studybugs website, just follow the prompts. Report now

What about the rest of my household?

You can post your own symptoms via Studybugs in the same way as for your child.

We don’t currently offer a way for you to report for anyone other than you and your children. Your partner, or any other adult member of your household, can register with Studybugs and report for themselves (but only one of you should add your children and report for them).

This is something we hope to streamline over the coming weeks.

What if we’re fine?

It’s really important for researchers to know this too – just as important as knowing your symptoms, in fact. If you or your child don’t have any symptoms, you can just say you’re fine.

How often should I report?

If you can report daily, that’s great. After your first report we’ll email you a daily reminder so you don’t need to remember (you can opt out of this if you like). If you miss a report or two though, not to worry – reports whenever you remember are very useful too.

Could you make it quicker to report each day?

We’re working hard to adapt and streamline Studybugs for coronavirus symptom-tracking, and lots of improvements are on the way. We’re also working with a team of epidemiologists to collect further data that will be useful to researchers. If you’re registered with Studybugs, we’ll keep you posted as we roll out updates over the comings days and weeks.

Meanwhile we very much welcome your .

What’s this for?

All symptom information is first completely anonymised, before being made available to researchers (in various organisations including Public Health England) working on coronavirus. Amongst other things, it will help shed light on the effectiveness of school closures, and help inform the decision as to when schools should re-open.

The anonymised symptom information is also shown on our “What’s Going Around” map which you’ll see when you’re signed in to our website.

Why is Studybugs doing this?

Studybugs was started back in 2014 to track the spread of illness and help keep children healthy and in school. So this is what we do. We’re funded by government grants and by schools, and we don’t make any money from data (the anonymised data we collect is available free of charge under an open data licence) or have any plans to introduce advertising. The Studybugs platform is available free of charge to all, for ever.

We’re committed to ensuring the data we’re collecting, with your help, is put to good use and can make a positive difference in tackling the pandemic.

Thanks for your support.

— The Studybugs public health team