31 May 2020 COVID-19 PCR test results for UK Biobank released

The latest tranche of COVID-19 PCR test result data for UK Biobank participants, collated from Public Health England data, has been released. This latest data covers the period March 16 - May 31. For details of how to access the data, see this post.

• 1474 returned one or more positive tests, of whom 991 returned tests while a hospital inpatient*
• 4643 never returned a positive test, of whom 3457 returned tests while a hospital inpatient

* This definition of COVID-19 positive inpatient does not require that the positive test and the test while an inpatient necessarily coincide in participants with multiple tests. Requiring them to coincide on the same test reduces this number from 991 to 976.

Compare the totals to the 18 May 2020 release here.

Important notes regarding negative test results:

• Public Health England has restructured its databases to manage large scale testing in response to implementation of the UK Government strategy's Pillar 2.
• Consequently, new negative test results are absent for some laboratories from this release. We aim to incorporate the omitted test results in future releases.

Changes to download mechanism:

UK Biobank have slightly changed the method for downloading the covid19_result table. I have updated the steps here.