Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

March 13, 2020

The Impact of School Closure for COVID-19 on the US Healthcare Workforce and the Net Mortality Effects

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  • The authors provide detailed data for public health officials to make informed decisions about the tradeoff associated with closing schools and healthcare worker absenteeism. Potential loss of healthcare workers due to lack of childcare may jeopardize overall public health outcomes.  
  • For school closures to unambiguously provide a net reduction in COVID-19 mortality, the school closures must reduce cases by over 25%, otherwise school closures will lead to a greater number of COVID-19 deaths than they can prevent. 

Bayhan and Fenichel (Mar 9, 2020). The Impact of School Closure for COVID-19 on the US Healthcare Workforce and the Net Mortality Effects. Pre-print downloaded on Mar 13 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033415