The role of school reopening in the spread of COVID-19

  1. Richard Beesley

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Many countries chose to close schools as part of their response to the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Whilst nations are gradually reopening schools, and many politicians advise that schools remain safe and the risks of increases in the spread of COVID-19 are low, little evidence has been presented to confirm those statements.

A review of the numbers of new confirmed COVID-19 cases by country suggests that the reopening of schools is likely to be a driver in the increase of the number of new cases. This is likely exacerbated by accompanying changes and easing of restrictions. However, with the exception of China, notable for its robust test, track, trace, and isolate processes, no other countries that had significant numbers of COVID-19 cases have successfully reopened schools without an increase in cases as a consequence.

Whilst reopening of schools following an initial peak and decrease in COVID-19 infections is desirable for a range of reasons, doing so without adequate controls and protections may lead to an exacerbation of spread within the school environment, which could then lead to increased community spread of disease.

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.03.20187757: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.03.20187757v1 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.03.20187757v2 on medRxiv