Impact of school closures and reopening on COVID-19 caseload in 6 cities of Pakistan: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis
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Abstract
Schools were closed all over Pakistan on November 26, 2020 to reduce community transmission of COVID-19 and reopened between January 18 and February 1, 2021. However, these closures were associated with significant economic and social costs, prompting a review of effectiveness of school closures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 infections in a developing country like Pakistan. A single-group interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) was used to measure the impact of school closures, as well as reopening schools, on daily new COVID-19 cases in 6 major cities across Pakistan: Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Quetta, Peshawar, and Muzaffarabad. However, any benefits were contingent on continued closure of schools, as cases bounced back once schools reopened. School closures are associated with a clear and statistically significant reduction in COVID-19 cases by 0.07 to 0.63 cases per 100,000 population, while reopening schools is associated with a statistically significant increase. Lahore is an exception to the effect of school closures, but it too saw an increase in COVID-19 cases after schools reopened in early 2021. We show that closing schools was a viable policy option, especially before vaccines became available. However, its social and economic costs must also be considered.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2022.05.25.22275590: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization We use a single-group ITSA because it is a quasi-experimental tool that is particularly useful when data cannot be fully randomized, there is no comparison group, and there is a need to consider the effect of only one intervention. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not 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.
R…
SciScore for 10.1101/2022.05.25.22275590: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization We use a single-group ITSA because it is a quasi-experimental tool that is particularly useful when data cannot be fully randomized, there is no comparison group, and there is a need to consider the effect of only one intervention. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not 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.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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