7/30—Reopening Primary Schools during the Pandemic
Most children 1 to 18 years old experience mild or no illness from Covid-19 and are much less likely than adults to face severe consequences from the infection. Covid-19 outbreaks in high schools in France, Israel, and New Zealand did not extend to nearby elementary schools, which suggests that susceptibility, infectiousness, or both are lower among younger children. Nor have school reopenings led to increased case counts in Finland, Belgium, Austria, Taiwan, or Singapore, although, again, schools in these countries have taken substantial extra precautions and are only slowly lifting restrictions on activities and group size. Israel offers a cautionary counterexample, since a recent case resurgence there may be linked to early high school reopenings in May, with crowded classrooms and minimal precautions in place (Levinson et al. 2020).
Association Between Statewide School Closure and COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality in the US
School closure was associated with a −62% (95% CI, −71% to −49%) relative change in COVID-19 incidence per week and a −58% (95% CI, −68% to −46%) relative change in mortality per week. Extrapolating these results to the US population, the authors estimate that school closure may have been associated with 1.37 million fewer cases of COVID-19 over a 26-day period […] during the spring of 2020.
The risk of COVID-19 transmission in train passengers: an epidemiological and modelling study
Travellers adjacent to the index patient had the highest attack rate (3.5%, 95%CI 2.9% – 4.3%) of COVID-19 infections (RR 18.0, 95%CI 13.9 – 23.4). The attack rate increased on average by 0.15% (p = 0.005) per hour of co-travel; for passengers at adjacent seats, this increase was 1.3% (p = 0.008), the highest among all seats considered. Measures should be taken to reduce the risk of transmission, including increasing seat distance, reducing passenger density, and use of personal hygiene protection.
Non-pharmaceutical Interventions for Pandemic COVID-19: A Cross-Sectional Investigation of US General Public Beliefs, Attitudes, and Actions
Of the 1,005 respondents, 37% (95% CI 34.0, 39.9) felt that NPIs were inconvenient, while only 0.9% (95% CI 0.3, 1.5) of respondents believed that NPIs would not reduce their personal risk of illness. Respondents were most uncertain regarding the efficacy of mask and eye protection use, with 30.6 and 22.1%, respectively, unsure whether their use would slow disease spread. Respondents were compliant with […] recommendations such as hand-washing; more onerous approaches, such as avoiding face touching, disinfecting surfaces, and wearing masks or goggles, were performed less frequently.
Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 Confinement Measures on Human Mobility using Mobile Positioning Data
The reduction of mobility strongly correlated to the decrease of Rt during the outset of the epidemic, whereas the increase of mobility after the lifting of confinement measures is not reflected in an increase of Rt, which can be explained by the increased use of protective measures and physical distancing.
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