Implications of the school-household network structure on SARS-CoV-2 transmission under school reopening strategies in England

In early 2020 many countries closed schools to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Since then, governments have sought to relax the closures, engendering a need to understand associated risks. Using address records, we construct a network of schools in England connected through pupils who share house...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2021-03, Vol.12 (1), p.1942-1942, Article 1942
Main Authors: Munday, James D., Sherratt, Katharine, Meakin, Sophie, Endo, Akira, Pearson, Carl A. B., Hellewell, Joel, Abbott, Sam, Bosse, Nikos I., Atkins, Katherine E., Wallinga, Jacco, Edmunds, W. John, van Hoek, Albert Jan, Funk, Sebastian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/114/2397
631/326/596/4130
692/308/174
692/699/255/2514
Adolescent
Child
Child, Preschool
Closures
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - transmission
COVID-19 - virology
Disease Transmission, Infectious - prevention & control
England - epidemiology
Family Characteristics
Households
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
multidisciplinary
Pandemics
Risk
Risk Assessment
Risk Factors
SARS-CoV-2 - isolation & purification
Schools
Schools - organization & administration
Schools - statistics & numerical data
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Severe acute respiratory syndrome
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Viral diseases
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In early 2020 many countries closed schools to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Since then, governments have sought to relax the closures, engendering a need to understand associated risks. Using address records, we construct a network of schools in England connected through pupils who share households. We evaluate the risk of transmission between schools under different reopening scenarios. We show that whilst reopening select year-groups causes low risk of large-scale transmission, reopening secondary schools could result in outbreaks affecting up to 2.5 million households if unmitigated, highlighting the importance of careful monitoring and within-school infection control to avoid further school closures or other restrictions. Many countries have closed schools as part of their COVID-19 response. Here, the authors model SARS-CoV-2 transmission on a network of schools and households in England, and find that risk of transmission between schools is lower if primary schools are open than if secondary schools are open.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-021-22213-0