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New survey on Covid-19 transmission in schools and mitigatation effortse
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A new study finds evidence that schools can be a source of coronavirus spread to staff and the families of students if those schools don’t take precautions such as requiring masks and limiting extracurricular activities.
Households where at least one child was back to school full-time in-person were 38% more likely to report someone infected with Covid-19 or a Covid-like illness, the team at Johns Hopkins University reported in the journal Science.
But the risk went down if schools imposed mitigation measures – by 9% for each measure added. If schools imposed seven or more different precautions, the increased risk disappeared, the team reported.
“Among those reporting seven or more mitigation measures, over 80% reported student and teacher mask mandates, restricted entry, extra space between desks and no supply sharing, and over 50% reported student cohorting, reduced class size and daily symptom screening,” epidemiologist Justin Lessler and colleagues wrote.
“The results presented here show a clear association between in-person schooling and the risk of Covid-19-related outcomes in adult household members, and that this association disappears when more than seven school-based mitigation measures are reported,” they added.
“In contrast, closing cafeterias, playgrounds and use of desk shields are associated with lower risk reductions (or even risk increases),” they wrote. “Notably, part-time in-person schooling is not associated with a decrease in the risk of Covid-19-related outcomes compared to full-time in-person schooling after accounting for other mitigation measures.”
... The team surveyed more than 500,000 households across the country at the end of last year and the beginning of 2021. ...
“Even if transmission in classrooms is rare, activities surrounding in-person schooling, such as student pick-up and drop-off, teacher interactions, and broader changes to behavior when school is in session could lead to increases in community transmission,” they added. “One of the main reasons for a focus on schools is not the risk to students, but the risk that in-person schooling poses to teachers and family members, and its impact on the overall epidemic.” ...
The survey doesn’t prove in-person schooling is the cause of the increased transmission, they noted. Communities that have returned to full-time in-person school are also more likely to have residents who have returned to visiting bars and restaurants, for example.
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