Determining the optimal strategy for reopening schools, the impact of test and trace interventions, and the risk of occurrence of a second COVID-19 epidemic wave in the UK: a modelling study

This article has been Reviewed by the following groups

Read the full article See related articles

Discuss this preprint

Start a discussion What are Sciety discussions?

Abstract

No abstract available

Article activity feed

  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.01.20100461: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Covasim’s default parameters determine the ways in which people progress through the states depicted in Figure 1, including the probabilities associated with onward transmission and disease progression, duration of disease by acuity, and the effects of interventions; these were collated during Covasim’s development and summarise the evidence available up until May 10, 2020.12 In addition, Covasim is pre-populated with demographic data on population age structures and household sizes by country, and uses these to generate population contact networks for the setting.
    Covasim’s
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The model presented here has a number of limitations. Firstly, while we have made an effort to characterise the pandemic to resemble that of the UK, some of the parameters we have used are from a variety of sources across different settings as used in Covasim and outlined in Kerr et al.12 However, the main aspect we have focused on changing to illustrate different scenarios, is the transmission probability of social (household, school, work and community) contacts and the primary source for this was UK based.15 The changes we have simulated across scenarios reflect our understanding of possible options for school reopening as discussed in the UK. They are therefore fit for purpose within this analysis. Secondly, as with any modelling study, we have made a series of assumptions within the modelling framework. Specifically, we made assumptions about the proportion of COVID-19 infections that are symptomatic, as in the literature, there is a mixed evidence on this. While the World Health Organisation suggests that 80% of infections show mild symptoms16 and a recent study from the Italian city of Vo’ Euganeo at the epicentre of the European pandemic confirms that a large proportion, 50%-75%, of COVID-19 infections do not result in symptoms, other studies suggest this number is smaller: e.g. 10% among children,17 18% among passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship18 and 42% among Japanese people returning from Wuhan, where the pandemic started.19 Changing this parameter in ou...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.