No causal effect of school closures in Japan on the spread of COVID-19 in spring 2020

  1. Kentaro Fukumoto
  2. Charles T. McClean
  3. Kuninori Nakagawa

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Abstract

Among tool kits to combat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, school closures are one of the most frequent non-pharmaceutical interventions. However, school closures bring about substantial costs, such as learning loss. To date, studies have not reached a consensus about the effectiveness of these policies at mitigating community transmission, partly because they lack rigorous causal inference. Here we assess the causal effect of school closures in Japan on reducing the spread of COVID-19 in spring 2020. By matching each municipality with open schools to a municipality with closed schools that is the most similar in terms of potential confounders, we can estimate how many cases the municipality with open schools would have had if it had closed its schools. We do not find any evidence that school closures in Japan reduced the spread of COVID-19. Our null results suggest that policies on school closures should be reexamined given the potential negative consequences for children and parents.

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  1. Version published to 10.1038/s41591-021-01571-8
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.21.21255832: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.
    • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.04.21.21255832v1 on medRxiv