Establishing a COVID-19 pandemic severity assessment surveillance system in Ireland.

We developed a COVID-19 pandemic severity assessment (PSA) monitoring system in Ireland, in order to inform and improve public health preparedness, response and recovery. The system based on the World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Influenza Severity Assessment (PISA) project included a panel of surveillance parameters for the following indicators: transmissibility, impact and disease severity. Age-specific thresholds were established for each parameter and data visualised using heat maps.