May 10, 2021

School Reopenings, Mobility, and COVID-19 Spread: Evidence from Texas

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Modeling and Prediction

Keywords (Tags): modeling, schools

• [Working paper, not peer-reviewed] A modeling study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that school reopenings in Texas in the fall of 2020 may have accelerated community spread of COVID-19, with 43,000 additional cases and more than 800 additional deaths within the first two months following reopenings. The report notes that schools in Texas reopened when community transmission was high, and reopenings occurred at near full student capacity, making social distancing difficult. Using mobility data, the authors found that the median time spent outside the home on a typical weekday increased substantially in neighborhoods with large numbers of school-age children, suggesting that reopenings may have impacted the behavior of adults.

Courtemanche et al. (May 2021). School Reopenings, Mobility, and COVID-19 Spread: Evidence from Texas. https://www.nber.org/papers/w28753