BACKGROUND: Schools were closed in England on 4 January 2021 as part of increased national restrictions to curb transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The UK government reopened schools on 8 March. Although there was evidence of lower individual-level transmission risk amongst children compared to adults, the combined effects of this with increased contact rates in school settings and the resulting impact on the overall transmission rate in the population were not clear. METHODS: We measured social contacts of > 5000 participants weekly from March 2020, including periods when schools were both open and closed, amongst other restrictions. We combined these data with estimates of the susceptibility and infectiousness of children compared with adults to estimate the impact of reopening schools on the reproduction number. RESULTS: Our analysis indicates that reopening all schools under the same measures as previous periods that combined lockdown with face-to-face schooling would be likely to increase the reproduction number substantially. Assuming a baseline of 0.8, we estimated a likely increase to between 1.0 and 1.5 with the reopening of all schools or to between 0.9 and 1.2 reopening primary or secondary schools alone. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that reopening schools would likely halt the fall in cases observed between January and March 2021 and would risk a return to rising infections, but these estimates relied heavily on the latest estimates or reproduction number and the validity of the susceptibility and infectiousness profiles we used at the time of reopening.
BACKGROUND: Schools were closed in England on 4 January 2021 as part of increased national restrictions to curb transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The UK government reopened schools on 8 March. Although there was evidence of lower individual-level transmission risk amongst children compared to adults, the combined effects of this with increased contact rates in school settings and the resulting impact on the overall transmission rate in the population were not clear. METHODS: We measured social contacts of > 5000 participants weekly from March 2020, including periods when schools were both open and closed, amongst other restrictions. We combined these data with estimates of the susceptibility and infectiousness of children compared with adults to estimate the impact of reopening schools on the reproduction number. RESULTS: Our analysis indicates that reopening all schools under the same measures as previous periods that combined lockdown with face-to-face schooling would be likely to increase the reproduction number substantially. Assuming a baseline of 0.8, we estimated a likely increase to between 1.0 and 1.5 with the reopening of all schools or to between 0.9 and 1.2 reopening primary or secondary schools alone. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that reopening schools would likely halt the fall in cases observed between January and March 2021 and would risk a return to rising infections, but these estimates relied heavily on the latest estimates or reproduction number and the validity of the susceptibility and infectiousness profiles we used at the time of reopening.
Authors: Russell M Viner; Oliver T Mytton; Chris Bonell; G J Melendez-Torres; Joseph Ward; Lee Hudson; Claire Waddington; James Thomas; Simon Russell; Fiona van der Klis; Archana Koirala; Shamez Ladhani; Jasmina Panovska-Griffiths; Nicholas G Davies; Robert Booy; Rosalind M Eggo Journal: JAMA Pediatr Date: 2021-02-01 Impact factor: 16.193
Authors: Anna A Mensah; Mary Sinnathamby; Asad Zaidi; Laura Coughlan; Ruth Simmons; Sharif A Ismail; Mary E Ramsay; Vanessa Saliba; Shamez N Ladhani Journal: J Infect Date: 2021-02-25 Impact factor: 6.072
Authors: Katelyn M Gostic; Lauren McGough; Edward B Baskerville; Sam Abbott; Keya Joshi; Christine Tedijanto; Rebecca Kahn; Rene Niehus; James A Hay; Pablo M De Salazar; Joel Hellewell; Sophie Meakin; James D Munday; Nikos I Bosse; Katharine Sherrat; Robin N Thompson; Laura F White; Jana S Huisman; Jérémie Scire; Sebastian Bonhoeffer; Tanja Stadler; Jacco Wallinga; Sebastian Funk; Marc Lipsitch; Sarah Cobey Journal: PLoS Comput Biol Date: 2020-12-10 Impact factor: 4.475
Authors: Sam Abbott; Rosanna C Barnard; Christopher I Jarvis; Adam J Kucharski; James D Munday; Carl A B Pearson; Timothy W Russell; Damien C Tully; Alex D Washburne; Tom Wenseleers; Nicholas G Davies; Amy Gimma; William Waites; Kerry L M Wong; Kevin van Zandvoort; Justin D Silverman; Karla Diaz-Ordaz; Ruth Keogh; Rosalind M Eggo; Sebastian Funk; Mark Jit; Katherine E Atkins; W John Edmunds Journal: Science Date: 2021-03-03 Impact factor: 63.714
Authors: Christopher I Jarvis; Kevin Van Zandvoort; Amy Gimma; Kiesha Prem; Petra Klepac; G James Rubin; W John Edmunds Journal: BMC Med Date: 2020-05-07 Impact factor: 8.775
Authors: Amy Gimma; James D Munday; Kerry L M Wong; Pietro Coletti; Kevin van Zandvoort; Kiesha Prem; Petra Klepac; G James Rubin; Sebastian Funk; W John Edmunds; Christopher I Jarvis Journal: PLoS Med Date: 2022-03-01 Impact factor: 11.069
Authors: George Qian; Michiko Toizumi; Sam Clifford; Lien Thuy Le; Tasos Papastylianou; Catherine Satzke; Billy Quilty; Chihiro Iwasaki; Noriko Kitamura; Mizuki Takegata; Minh Xuan Bui; Hien Anh Thi Nguyen; Duc Anh Dang; Albert Jan van Hoek; Lay Myint Yoshida; Stefan Flasche Journal: PLoS Med Date: 2022-05-31 Impact factor: 11.613
Authors: Mrinank Sharma; Sören Mindermann; Jan Markus Brauner; Charlie Rogers-Smith; Gavin Leech; Benedict Snodin; Janvi Ahuja; Jonas B Sandbrink; Joshua Teperowski Monrad; George Altman; Gurpreet Dhaliwal; Lukas Finnveden; Alexander John Norman; Sebastian B Oehm; Julia Fabienne Sandkühler; Laurence Aitchison; Tomáš Gavenčiak; Thomas Mellan; Jan Kulveit; Leonid Chindelevitch; Seth Flaxman; Yarin Gal; Swapnil Mishra; Samir Bhatt Journal: Nat Commun Date: 2021-10-05 Impact factor: 14.919
Authors: Trystan Leng; Edward M Hill; Alex Holmes; Emma Southall; Robin N Thompson; Michael J Tildesley; Matt J Keeling; Louise Dyson Journal: Nat Commun Date: 2022-03-01 Impact factor: 14.919
Authors: Akira Endo; Mitsuo Uchida; Naoki Hayashi; Yang Liu; Katherine E Atkins; Adam J Kucharski; Sebastian Funk Journal: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Date: 2021-11-16 Impact factor: 12.779