Developing and validating an individual-level risk calculator for COVID-19 in the United States

Abstract COVID-19 is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Certain subsets of the U.S. population account for a disproportionately large number of deaths, and risk varies widely across individuals. Evidence-based risk assessment tools customized to individuals can help users understand their risk level and risk management strategies. Here we present the 19andMe COVID-19 Risk Calculator that we developed and validated to assess COVID-19 risks based on geography, demographics, health condition and adherence to public health guidelines. The calculator, which is reviewed periodically to reflect the most recent evidence, is publicly available through both a web-based tool (167,276 visitors between April 1, 2020, and January 13, 2021) and an Application Programming Interface. To validate our methods, we compared risk scores for a set of users from Nexoid’s COVID-19 survival calculator (n = 51,799) using multiple publicly available calculators: 19andMe, Nexoid and the COVID-19 Estimated Risk (COVER). Mortality risk estimates were consistent between 19andMe and Nexoid, with 98.5% of users within 10% of each other (Spearman correlation rs = 0.91). We also correlated exposure risk estimates between 19andMe and Nexoid (rs = 0.48). The risk estimates for hospitalization, admission to intensive care unit and mortality were consistent between 19andMe and COVER (rs = 0.89, 0.87 and 0.93 respectively).