The Effect of In-Person Primary and Secondary School Instruction on County-Level Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Spread in Indiana

  1. Gabriel T Bosslet
  2. Micah Pollak
  3. Jeong Hoon Jang
  4. Rebekah Roll
  5. Mark Sperling
  6. Babar Khan

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Abstract

Background

Our goal was to determine the county-level effect of in-person primary and secondary school reopening on daily cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Indiana.

Methods

In this county-level, population-based study, we used a panel data regression analysis of the proportion of in-person learning to evaluate an association with community-wide daily new SARS-CoV-2 cases. The study period was 12 July 2020–6 October 2020. We included 73 of 92 (79.3%) Indiana counties in the analysis, accounting for 85.7% of school corporations and 90.6% of student enrollment statewide. The primary exposure was the proportion of students returning to in-person instruction. The primary outcome was the daily new SARS-CoV-2 cases per 100 000 residents at the county level.

Results

There is a statistically significant relationship between the proportion of students attending K-12 schools in-person and the county level daily cases of SARS-CoV-2 28 days later. For all ages, the coefficient of interest (β) is estimated at 3.36 (95% confidence interval, 1.91 to 4.81; P < .001). This coefficient represents the effect of a change in the proportion of students attending in-person on new daily cases 28 days later. For example, a 10 percentage point increase in K-12 students attending school in-person is associated with a daily increase in SARS-CoV-2 cases in the county equal to 0.336 cases/100 000 residents of all ages.

Conclusions

In-person primary and secondary school is associated with a statistically significant but proportionally small increase in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 cases.

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  1. Version published to 10.1093/cid/ciab306
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.17.21250449: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Per the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Institutional Review Board, this study was not subject to human subjects research oversight due to the lack of individual-level data collection.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot 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.
    • 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.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.17.21250449v1 on medRxiv