December 21, 2020

No Evidence of Association between Schools and SARS-CoV-2 Second Wave in Italy

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Transmission

Keywords (Tags): transmission

[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] There was no evidence from a prospective study that school reopenings across Italy drove the second wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Analysis of data from 20 regions indicated that from September 12 to November 7, new SARS-CoV-2 cases among elementary and middle school students was an average of 39% lower than in the general population in all regions except Lazio. Conversely, infection appears to be more widespread among teachers and staff members of schools (including staff with little interaction with students) than in the general population. The increase in the reproduction number was not temporally associated with school opening dates. In schools, despite the high frequency of tests per week, secondary infections were <1%, and clusters were infrequent in a representative November week.

Gandini et al. (Dec 18, 2020). No Evidence of Association between Schools and SARS-CoV-2 Second Wave in Italy. Pre-print downloaded Dec 21 from  https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.16.20248134v1