Evaluating scenarios for school reopening under COVID19

  1. Arden Baxter
  2. Buse Eylul Oruc
  3. John Asplund
  4. Pinar Keskinocak
  5. Nicoleta Serban

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Abstract

Background

Thousands of school systems have struggled with the decisions about how to deliver education safely and effectively amid the COVID19 pandemic. This study evaluates the public health impact of various school reopening scenarios (when, and how to return to in-person instruction) on the spread of COVID19.

Methods

An agent-based simulation model was adapted and used to project the impact of various school reopening strategies on the number of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in the state of Georgia during the study period, i.e., February 18 th -November 24 th , 2020. The tested strategies include (i) schools closed , i.e., all students receive online instruction, (ii) alternating school day , i.e., half of the students receive in-person instruction on Mondays and Wednesdays and the other half on Tuesdays and Thursdays, (iii) alternating school day for children , i.e., half of the children (ages 0-9) receive in-person instruction on Mondays and Wednesdays and the other half on Tuesdays and Thursdays, (iv) children only , i.e., only children receive in-person instruction, (v) regular , i.e., all students return to in-person instruction. We also tested the impact of universal masking in schools.

Results

Across all scenarios, the number of COVID19-related deaths ranged from approximately 8.8 to 9.9 thousand, the number of cumulative infections ranged from 1.76 to 1.96 million for adults and 625 to 771 thousand for children and youth, and the number of COVID19-related hospitalizations ranged from approximately 71 to 80 thousand during the study period. Compared to schools reopening August 10 with a regular reopening strategy, the percentage of the population infected reduced by 13%, 11%, 9%, and 6% in the schools closed , alternating school day for children , children only , and alternating school day reopening strategies, respectively. Universal masking in schools for all students further reduced outcome measures.

Conclusions

Reopening schools following a regular reopening strategy would lead to higher deaths, hospitalizations, and infections. Hybrid in-person and online reopening strategies, especially if offered as an option to families and teachers who prefer to opt-in, provide a good balance in reducing the infection spread compared to the regular reopening strategy, while ensuring access to in-person education.

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  1. Version published to 10.1186/s12889-022-12910-w
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.22.20160036: (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: Thank you for sharing your data.

    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

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  3. Version published to 10.21203/rs.3.rs-54082/v1 on Research Square
  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.22.20160036v1 on medRxiv